Steps Behind
by Mirrordance
Summary: 56 seals down, 10 left to open. It's 2009 and Lucifer's standing on the welcome mat. At the eve of the final battle in a losing war, the Winchesters make their last goodbyes, and at this end of days, Dean is finally learning to let Sam go.
1. Chapter 1

Author:Mirrordance

Title: **Steps Behind**

Summary:56 seals down, 10 left to open. It's 2009, and Lucifer's standing on the welcome mat. At the eve of the final battle in a losing war, the Winchesters make their last goodbyes, and at this end of days, Dean is finally learning to let Sam go.

**Author's Note**:

First off, happy new year, everybody, and thanks to all who read and especially all who reviewed my last fic _Underworld_. _Steps Behind_ is my new project, and was previewed at the afterword of _Underworld_. As I've mentioned before, this is going to be a tragedy, so you've been warned! From a story-telling perspective, I'd rather not warn people when I plan things like that, especially if it's an integral part of the story. But in , I guess it's only fair, haha. Besides, I got called out on it very severely once before, and I know a lot of people would rather know this before they commit to reading a story.

If you're not into tragedies, Chapter 1 doesn't go that far and is a stand-alone (it's such a stand-alone that i may or may not even continue this story, depending on my mood and how it's received, I guess), so you may want to give it a shot. But as the others chapters come in, haha, you may proceed at your own peril :) Without further ado, here's another experimental fic from me:

" " "

**Steps Behind**

_**1: Flight**_

" " "

_2001_

" " "

_Dean couldn't help but be a little bit sad about it, the same way Sam couldn't help but be a lot happy about it. It was just one of those things._

_"So free ride to Stanford, huh?" Dean said, tone flat and neutral, like he was still at that plane where he was trying to figure out whether he should fluctuate higher or lower, be happy or sad, be proud or pissed or... _whatever_._

_"Sonofabitch," he said instead, shaking his head in amazement, "Wow, Sammy."_

_His kid brother was grinning from ear to ear, like the corners of his mouth could wrap all around to the back of his head or something._

_"I know," Sam said, chest rising in a deep, proud breath. He was sucking all the damn air from inside the car, like a fricking giant. He was taking all the air, and Dean was getting dizzy from getting none of it. Sam was leaving, Dean was staying. Sam was happy, Dean was sad. Did it have to be a zero-sum game between them?_

_"I can't believe it either," Sam exhaled._

_"Oh I believe it," Dean corrected him, "I've always known you were a smart kid. It's just... _wow_, Sammy."_

Could that grin go wider?

Sam does the impossible again.

I guess it can, _Dean thought._

_Sam threw back his head in a booming laugh, and then stuck his head and torso out the window and howled at the wind and the sun and the wide open road. He could feel the air run through his hair like gentle fingers. He opened his arms up to the sky, feeling like the world was his. _

_Dean watched him, lips quirking. There was something bubbling inside of him, something that was a cross between a choke and a chuckle. Happy or sad? Proud or pissed?_

_But Sam looked like a kid again, for the first time in a long time. Anything that can make that happen was kind-of okay in Dean's book._

_He chuckled too, and shook his head at his brother's uncharacteristically silly antics in endeared amusement. He kept his eyes on the road and a hand on the wheel, as he reached for Sam's jacket to reel him back in._

_"Easy there," Dean said, "Wouldn't want you to fall out now that you're gonna be the meal ticket."_

_Sam settled back down in his seat, and beamed at Dean. His glistening eyes dimmed a little as he said, "There was a part of me that knew for sure you'd be pissed off at me instead."_

_Dean paused, and changed the subject altogether. "You know when I knew exactly how smart you were?"_

_Sam pursed his lips, but knew his brother long enough to understand to back off... at least, temporarily._

_"I was always smart," Sam said, cheekily, "It just took you awhile to figure it out."_

_"Yeah and he's humble too," Dean said, sarcastically, "You know what, since you're being such a pompous ass about it, nevermind."_

_Nothing was going to dampen Sam's spirits, so he just smiled bemusedly and looked out the windshield, fully expecting his brother to break. Dean did, because Dean always did. _

_"Dad was trying to wake you up for something I can't remember what now," Dean said, not bothering with taking back his previous statement, "You were five years old. Dad said, 'Get up; the early bird catches the worm.' You said 'But dad, what if I'm the early worm?'" _

_Dean laughed in memory, "I still remember his face, Sam. Trying hard not to laugh, because by then he'd never have gotten you out of bed, wrapped him around your little finger. We had to learn to manage your hubris, little brother, even then."_

_"Dad," Sam murmured, eyes darkening a little, tone turning quiet._

_"Yeah," Dean said, and they both knew what the other meant._

_"Maybe he won't mind," Dean said after a long moment, though he himself sounded unconvinced, "I mean, he goes away a lot anyway. Or maybe I can carry around a lamp post, top it with a mop head, call it 'Sammy,' and dad wouldn't even notice."_

_Sam smiled wanly, appreciating his brother's effort to lighten the situation._

_"Do _you_ mind?" Sam asked, quietly._

_"Does it matter?" Dean asked back; it was a genuine question with no venom. Your kid brother tells you he got into Stanford on a free ride, the same kid brother you taught to read and write and helped with homework, and you don't get mad. You just get a little bit... _bent_._

_"Matter...?" Sam inquired._

_"Can it change things?" Dean clarified, "And I don't think so."_

_"So you mind," Sam concluded._

_"How can't I?" Dean asked. He couldn't help being sad about Sam leaving him, the same way Sam couldn't help being happy about the seeming-brilliance of the rest of his life._

_Sam pursed his lips, and nodded in understanding._

_"So it doesn't matter," Dean finished, "Don't let it rain on your parade, Samantha. I'm happy for you, seriously. Dad's gonna be pissed as hell at you and yelling up a storm, just you wait, but even he'd be proud, you know?"_

_"Right," Sam scoffed, "That's a feeling he'd have to _excavate_, Dean." _

_"He'll find it," Dean guaranteed dryly._

_"But like you said, it doesn't matter," Sam said, beginning to smile again, "Nothing's gonna change my mind. This is the chance of a lifetime. I can't believe it. I feel like I can fly."_

_"Not too high, bro," Dean snorted, "I mean, try not to forget us little people."_

_"Well you _are_ little--" Sam was saying, but his voice drifted off, and he turned around suddenly to look at the backseat of the car._

_"I'm not little," Dean snapped, "It's just a visual illusion from standing next to a telephone pole all the time!"_

_Sam glanced back at Dean, and then at the backseat._

_"What?" Dean asked him._

_"Nothing," Sam said, shaking his head. He glanced at the rearview mirror, "Thought I heard something."_

_ He turned his attention back to the present and the future, gazed back to the open and road stretching before the windshield and then back to Dean, and he beamed yet again. It was a huge damn grin, that's what it was, and there was something almost angelic about how Sam looked; the beatific smile, shining eyes, the glow of the sun on his skin, the gentle breeze ruffling his hair. _

_He really did look like he could fly._

" " "

2009

" " "

"Dean, you have a visitor."

He looked up at the nurse from... from whatever it was he was doing or thinking about, he's forgotten, lost track of the time, been losing track of a lot of things the last few days.

"Thanks," he told her with a wan smile. She was pretty and gracious and he saw her a lot, and yet he couldn't for the life of him even remember her name, or bring himself to care.

Castiel looked as calm as always, striding into his room after she ushered him in. He still looked like an accountant or a bank clerk, sure, but now he looked more grave, like he was predicting the Great Depression.

A year of working with humans and particularly Dean, still did nothing to improve on Castiel's recognition for a wider-berth of personal space; he sat by Dean's IV'd arm, thigh brushing it casually, maybe even obliviously. But at least now he was letting his entrance be announced, and Dean had even caught him knocking on a door once or twice. He remembered thinking, _Holy crap_. And had to physically restrain himself from saying, _Knock knock knockin' on Heaven's door_.

"You look well," Castiel said quietly, "I'm glad. They were not so optimistic when you first arrived, but I knew them to be wrong."

"You should have seen the other guys," Dean smirked at him, half-heartedly, out of sheer reflex. He had been sent out to guard an unopened seal against a very determined bunch of demons, along with a contingent of angels and fellow-hunters a week past. Enemies and allies all died there, and he was the only one who emerged more-or-less alive. His eyes darkened in memory. Colloquially, '_the other guys_' usually meant just the enemy, not your allies, certainly not your friends. But _the good, the bad, and the ugly_, they were all similarly torn up and broken back there. Bodies littering the place, _fucking mess_. He laid on the field amongst the dead and bled and rode that _Runway train ain't never coming back_, and the only thing he could think about was that he was happy his brother, who had been injured on another mission just before his, was stuck cooling his heels in sick bay. Dean laid there dying, lying over the seal that decidedly _did. not. break_., until help arrived.

"You were not well enough for the briefing on this new mission," Castiel said, pausing before he added, "This _last_ mission."

"Last?" Dean asked, brows furrowing.

"Fifty-six of the necessary sixty-six seals to set Lucifer walking the Earth have been broken," Castiel informed him, "We imagine this deployment of people would be the last in the campaign, one way or another."

"Damn it," Dean muttered, free hand already shakily reaching for his IV, wanting to rip it out. He shifted and grunted in pain, angling to shuffle to his feet.

Castiel put a warm, calming hand to his trembling, pained one. "I will not stop you Dean, but there is more to be said, and your medicine might as well stay where it is until I am done."

Dean met his resolved gaze and nodded shortly, lying back down, feeling dizzied.

"The last thing I heard," Dean huffed, "They were about twenty seals shy of the target. What the heck happened?"

"The last time you were fully aware before now was a week ago," Castiel pointed out, mildly, "These last few days... the demons have created a surge unlike any they have attempted before. The brutal assault upon your contingent was the first amongst many in the storm they unleashed last week. I believe they were thinking they could end it all in one fell sweep, but we held fast to our seals. It was brutal on both fronts, and now that they are regrouping, we too, have the opportunity to discuss and act upon our options."

"What options?" Dean asked, wearily, before masking it with a wicked grin, "But you know what they say, Cas. There's nothing more dangerous than a man who has lost everything. We can work with these odds, huh?"

"I am not Sam," Castiel told him, flatly.

"That's random," Dean smirked, even as his eyes begged the other to go no further--

"You need not pretend for me," Castiel said, and to Dean's relief, went on as if it was nothing, "Assignments have been set. I found it prudent to inform you that you will be separated from your brother."

"What?!" Dean exclaimed, "That's just a pile of-"

"Listen first," Castiel told him, eyes going earnest now, pinning Dean to silence, "The demons have a new spell that they have been using sporadically over the last few days. It affects just angels, to which mortal men are immune. You have your weaknesses, and we have ours. The contingents will have to be a mix of mortals and angels, Dean. There are too few of you in our fold, and so you and Sam have been assigned separate tasks."

"No way," Dean said, strategy be _damned_, because if this was the final show, and this was the toughest gig, Sam wasn't walking anywhere he wasn't steps behind. _No way_.

Castiel raised up a hand, "I am not finished."

"I don't care--"

"It might appease you to know," Castiel went on anyway, voice raised a little, the very human, subtly combative way he had learned to act around Dean, "It might appease you to know that the strategy remains two-fold. Contingents will be deployed to protect the unopened seals and are expected to fend off the demonic attacks upon them. But the search for Lilith and Alastair continues, because eliminating the leaders would cut off the head of this beast and derail the demons on a more decisive manner. You have been assigned to the protection of a seal. Sam has been assigned to search for Lilith and Alastair."

Dean's brows rose. That sounded bad, but in practice, it truly wasn't. People and angels assigned on the Lilith/Alastair-trail had a massive survival rate, precisely because encounters were few and far between since they were so hard to find. Sam running around after the elusive bitch and dick duo would be much better than Sam digging his heels into the defense of a seal, just waiting for an attack that was bound to happen and bound to be brutal because their numbers were spread thin across so many seals, while the demons just had to focus all their efforts in a few.

"I think I'm down with this," Dean murmured.

"Sam's... _disposition_," Castiel added, "Makes him our one true card left, Dean. I do not mean that our situation is desperate enough to require the use of his powers, but either way, Lilith and Alastair fear no one but him. We have to put him in the best position to defeat them. And similarly, we do not want him in a position where he can be captured and made to fight with them. Either way, he cannot be tied in the defense of an outpost."

"Not like the dregs like me, huh?" Dean chuckled, "As long as he lives, man."

"I would not sell you short," Castiel said, "You have not lost a seal since the very first one that was put in your protection."

"Samhain," Dean winced, "Yeah, that. You'll never let me forget it, huh?"

"You still own one of the best rates of success, Dean," Castiel told him, gently, "Amongst humans _or _angels."

"Not that it means anything now," Dean said, "Ten to go... God..."

"Dean, there's something else," said Castiel, "Between you and me... I believe you will be sent to the least defensible of outposts, by virtue of all that you have accomplished so far. You have a right to know."

Dean stared at him for a long, thoughtful moment.

"I might never get out of this," Dean said, quietly, wince-smiling, "I mean the Vegas money is on none of us getting out alive, but I don't even make the board, 's what you're saying."

"Your brother," Castiel murmured, "He is a very smart man. He understands all of this, and all that it could mean. He also understands that it is strategically sound, and must be attempted. What he does not understand, is why all of this is happening. Why it is your family that must sacrifice again. Answers I cannot give."

"Answers _I_'ve never been able to give either," Dean said, "What? You want me to talk to him? He hasn't really been listening to me lately." He wrinkled his nose in endeared dismay, "He's bossy."

"Everyone here is fighting of their own free will," Castiel said, "Both of you can defy the assignments and band together. Both of you can even walk out that door, live a little bit longer, change your allegiances, even... and that is your choice to make. But I pray that you do not abandon us now."

"Sam's not afraid of losing or dying," Dean said, "He won't run. Neither will I."

"He doesn't want to run," Castiel corrected him, "He wants to take you away, and though there is a monumental difference the result will be the same. You are both needed wherever you are put, Dean, and that is all. No one else can impress this upon him but you."

"I'll talk to him," Dean promised.

"Thank you."

Dean bit his lip thoughtfully, and looked up at Castiel, "So uh... this deployment. When's it gonna be?"

"We cannot expect it to be longer than twenty-four hours from now," Castiel said.

"Where are you gonna be?" Dean asked.

"I have the lethal honor of standing beside you," Castiel said, his expression unreadable.

" " "

Dean always knew the Church had a lot of money floating around, but a high-rise in Manhattan as the headquarters for God's Army had exceeded even his wildest dreams. The penthouse was devoted to a large hall for worship, lined all around by glass windows touching the skies, as close to heaven as the living could get. Dean wondered if they ever held parties there, 'cos that would be _awesome_.

A number of floors were devoted to small, spartan dormitories, where he and Sam and other mortals drafted into this secret war – fellow-hunters, religious scholars, nuns, priests, lay people, medical personnel, etc. - crashed while they were in town and in the service of the cause. There were a few floors devoted to sick bay, which he and Sam and many others who have gotten hurt along the course of the campaign have become all-too-familiar with.

There too, was floor after floor of the most comprehensive library and inventory of supernatural references and paraphernalia he had ever seen in his life. When they brought Bobby Singer there, they didn't see the old man for _days _it seemed, and he came out looking like he won the New York lotto, or slept with a supermodel.

The most impressive thing he had seen, however, was a jaw-dropping command center, just sheer technology keeping track of demonic activity and coordinating with similar headquarters all around the world. They were being manned by nuns and priests and stern-looking young people who looked like they were drafted out of the fricking choir from MIT.

The first time Castiel brought them there a few months ago, Dean had a profound feeling of being _small_, and that was a mind-blowing relief. He suddenly felt that they were not alone in this, that they had a chance to win. When Castiel talked about the armies of God, of brothers in arms and allies and war, he wasn't kidding around. There were tangible, material aspects to the war. If it was being held on earthly ground, and they perforce had to use earthly means too, alongside their other skills. And because the numbers of the angels weren't infinite, they also drafted the services of men like Dean and his brother. Granted, the brothers Winchester and their hunter-allies were a bit off the mold; most of the others looked like choir-singing, nice, _clean_ religious people who were incidentally bad-assed fighters with guns. He learned early to stop cursing when in the premises.

Fifty-six torn-open seals and a lot of blood and sweat later, the chance they had to win had shrank from slim to slimmer-to-none, thinned out along with his reasonable hopes. Now, every single unopened seal had to be defended. Their already too-thin army had to spread out. Brothers had to be parted...

Parting was always inevitable, they all knew that. But bare knowledge certainly could never constrain its brutality, or make the pain any less.

The recognition of this inevitability dusted the hours that preceded it with a kind of magic: time moved differently, faster, fleeting. And yet even the slightest, once-negligible moments within it were suddenly more meaningful, more memorable, _amplified_. Every little thing suddenly meant more, invoking the past, shaping the future, time turned and twisted like a pretzel. The contradictory nature of those days – less time, more worth – and the misshapen unfolding of time, was tearing on the soul.

_Schizophrenic_, Sam would say.

It was not the first time they separated ways, nor was it the first time they thought that a goodbye was the last time they would ever see each other. But this one had an air of finality about it, and Dean knew in his gut that he can no longer rely on the false hopes conferred by past precedent. They can say goodbye now, and truly never see each other again, _this time_.

The first time they said goodbye was when Sam left for California.

_Sons and kid brothers left their families for college all the time, but certainly none of them were ever told to never come back. Maybe some, but ideally, none. And more importantly, none of them left behind older brothers who had jobs that rendered estimations of life expectancies both bothersome and depressing. _I could be dead tomorrow_ was not a battle-cry, it was a credible forecast based on empirical data. Because very easily, Sam standing determined on a bus stop with nothing but a battered rucksack, a few hundred dollars of Dean's hustling money and all-too-few real jewelry to pawn and a lot of guts, could have been the last time the brothers would ever seen each other, if Dean had died on the job while Sam was away._

The second time they said goodbye was when Dean left his brother in California.

_Their dad was missing. And even though – in strict accordance with the Standard Operating Procedures of Younger Brothers - they had to go through the motions of arguing about why it was important to look for him this time, it did not surprise Dean that Sam went with him anyway. For awhile, at any rate. And then it was goodbye again, but not as hard. Dean thought he was leaving Sam his peace and his future and his gorgeous girlfriend and consequently the rest of his life. It was not hard to walk away knowing that. He had been too quickly proven wrong, but when he left, when they said goodbye... it was quick, and casual, and it was not hard to walk away knowing that it was the best for Sam, no, not hard at all._

The third time they said goodbye was in Maryland. Sam had dared his older brother to leave him behind and Dean had called it.

_Cold midnight road and a solitary figure in the rearview mirror. Dean stared at it, more than he looked ahead at the road. Rearview – regret, hindsight – and the road stretched forward and he alone along it, echoes of the argument they just had overwhelming the oppressive silence in his car, and he thought that the rest of his life was going to be just like this. He made his peace with his brother by phone. And yet the silence lingered, and again, he thought about the rest of his life. Days later, tied up and at the mercy of a ravenous god, he realized the _the rest of his life_ was not going to be very long. But it was Sam's turn to come back. It was Sam's turn to save his life_.

By then - because third time's a charm, and it always copied better anyway - there was a sense of futility about goodbye's. Their track record _sucked_, which was probably why they started avoiding it like the plague. Sam, going off on his own, silent and wordless, and Dean with his alternately humorous and open aversion and defiance, thinking death and defeat to be unacceptable. No more goodbyes. _No more_.

Parting numbers four and five were a _bitch_ because they had been less of goodbyes, but more of forcible wrenching. Sam had cried "Dean!" in relief, as if his brother had saved him already, and it was the last thing he ever said, before his back was stabbed and he died in his older brother's arms, which was, for a time, the extent to which Dean could save him. Dean took a turn on the shit-end of that deal too, had told Sam to remember the things he's been taught, before Dean was mercilessly and gracelessly dragged into hell.

Parting number six... _god_, did it have to be that number? Dean was beginning to honestly and truly hate that number. Sixty-six seals to bring up hell, about six hundred to choose from, sixth goodbye to Sammy, the diameter in inches of a too-small personal-sized pizza and half a footlong sub (_because everyone knows both of these are never enough_). Six _sucks_. The only things good about the number were six bullets in a Colt, a six-pack, half a dozen donuts and cookies, and the fact that it sounded a lot like the word 'sex.'

" " "

_Winchesters Say Goodbye, take six. Action!_ Dean thought, macabrely, as he brooded into his mostly-untouched beer.

Sam was sitting in front of him, silent. He's been so quiet, lately. Defeat was hovering over all of them like a thick fog, but Sam could have had rain clouds on as a hat. Sam was a good drinker now, and with good reason.

Dean looked up at him, and then beyond him. They were in a snazzy cafeteria, all minimalist white walls and abstract, incomprehensible paintings. Angels had divine taste in décor too, he supposed. No seedy bars and crappy motel rooms housing, feeding and healing the Army of God, that's for sure.

"So we're both assigned on the Lilith/Alastair detail," Sam lied, boldly.

Dean actually found it in himself to give his blushing brother an honest-to-god jovial laugh, and went on shamelessly until karma bitched and got his healing body complaining. He groaned and settled down.

"You're not good to go anywhere like this, Dean," Sam sighed, realizing Dean had been briefed about the situation after all, "Much less playing cannon fodder defending a damn seal."

"We're put wherever we're needed, Sammy."

"If this was the other way around," Sam pointed out, "You won't give a shit about strategy, and what other people need. You'll just be as pissed as hell as I am. _More_."

"True," Dean admitted with a shrug, because there was no use hiding, they didn't have the damn time.

"So go along with me on this," Sam urged, "I need you. Go with me. Or I can just go with you."

"Sam," Dean said, frowning, "You can't do what I'm doing, all right? If they nab you, or kill you, we lose the best chance we have – the only chance we have by now, I think - of beating this thing. And I can't go where you're headed either."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because one way or another," Dean replied, crudely, hoping the blow would cut through Sam's illusions that there was anything else to be done about this, "Someone's gonna be sent doing what I'm supposed to, and I can't stomach putting someone else on a bag that has my name on it."

"So you're telling me," Sam said, and damn but his face was turning red in rage now, "You're telling me you're going out there, we both know there's a chance you're gonna get killed, and I'm supposed to just sit back and take it? What the hell do you think kind of a brother I am?"

"We all might die," Dean said, quietly, and he really didn't want to have to talk about this again, but Sam needed to hear it, "All of us, and that's just simple truth. I can't... I can't not do what I think is right anymore, Sammy, 'cos there's just no more time to make up for it. That's just how it is. Besides, the idea... the idea of putting someone else in the frontline just so I can live?" Dean asked, his voice shaking now, "It's like... it's like getting off the rack and putting someone else on."

" " "

Sam stared at his older brother for a long moment.

Dean looked half-dead and there was no two ways about it. He had lost weight, lost some muscle in the few days he'd been laid up in the hospital with everyone saying at the start that he wasn't gonna make it. And yet he was sitting with Sam, AMA no doubt, but very much awake, alert, alive... more than a little bit drugged, probably, because he was being brutally honest too.

_The idea of putting someone else in the frontline just so I can live? It's like getting off the rack and putting someone else on..._

If anything can break Sam's resolve it was that one. Dean had never, ever been in a pain deeper than when he had disappointed himself by succumbing to hell, and imagined that he had no face to show his kid brother and their father anymore. Hell was hell, everyone breaks, that's just why it is. And Sam asked around; Dean _had _held on longer than most people would have.

_So did dad break too?_ was a question for the ages, one that he couldn't bother with yet, so he left it at that. Either way, it wasn't Dean's fault, but there was no explaining that to him. _Ever_. And so Dean went on with the guilt and redemption and the frayed sanity in the desperate mission to work against the rising of hell 'til he won or 'til he died, and Sam just let him.

_I can't not do what I think is right anymore, Sammy, 'cos there's just no more time to make up for it..._

For a long moment, Sam debated telling Dean to do this _for me_. That always worked, didn't it? _Do it for me. For me. _Live _for me..._

However, like Dean, he too was beginning to see that life had become too short not to do the right thing. Of course... morality could always be bypassed by desperation and love, and his brother he loved_ blind_. But he held his tongue because more than that, _far _more than that, Sam couldn't for the life of him push his older brother into actions that would ultimately make Dean loathe himself.

_"How I feel?" Dean had asked, and he had said it with such self-loathing, "Inside me? I wish I couldn't feel anything anymore Sammy. I wish I couldn't feel a damn thing."_

Sam couldn't ask that of him, just _couldn't_.

"Let's just stick to the angelic fricking plan, Sam," Dean implored him, "All right man? I mean I don't ask you for anything, right? And I wish it could be different, but this is just the way it is. Please. I seldom ask you for anything..."

That kind of sounded like a _'For me_,' didn't it? _Damn_, Sam thought, wishing he had used that card and said it first after all.

"So what am I supposed to do?" Sam murmured.

"We gotta win this time, Sammy," Dean said, fervent but quiet, "We just gotta. What I'm doing... what you're doing... that's the best chance we got to ace this thing. I know what it's like down there. We can't afford to lose. So I guess we just have to be wherever we need to be."

" " "

_2001_

" " "

_"Come with me," Sam said, head turned down, back to his brother, wiry hands busy with shoving clothes into his bag, mixed with the tears that fell on them._

_"You can't mean that," Dean replied quietly, as he worked the other end of the room, gathering his younger brother's things, and scoping out any of his own that Sam might find useful in college._

_"I do," Sam said, lifting up his head and turning to face Dean, as he angrily and impatiently swiped at his tear-streaked face, "Come with me."_

_"I can't," Dean said, walking over and handing him a couple of t-shirts. He slipped in his favorite hoodie, the warmest one he owned and one of the few pieces of clothing they could share, somewhere in between Sam's t-shirts. Sam swiped at the pile angrily, and shoved it into his bag without looking at what was there._

_"'Cos you're taking his side again," Sam snapped, shaking his head in disappointed dismay, "Typical. Goddamn perfect soldier--"_

_"You're just saying this because you're angry--" Dean began._

_"Always taking his side," Sam went on, "Buck stops with dad, huh, footsoldier? The damn dregs, no mind of--"_

_"Picking a fight with me is not going to make you leaving any easier on anyone, okay?" Dean said, tone rising because it was hard not to hurt about the things his brother was saying, "So cut it out!"_

_Sam glared at him with nose flaring, but gave him a short nod. Guilt and apology flared in his eyes but vanished quickly; the night was going along badly enough, and one more emotion was going to leave him bone-dry._

_Dean took a long, calming breath. "What did you expect, right? Of course he was going to be angry. We knew that--"_

_"Angry?" Sam snorted, "Try murderous, Dean. I think I just got _disowned_, and we don't even own anything!"_

_"Listen to me, Sammy," Dean said, mind whirring with busy thought and also potentially busy delusion, "This is what I think you should do. Dad'll be back in a couple of hours, he'll be calmer by then--"_

_"He said I'd better be gone by the time he gets back," Sam said darkly, "Gone and gone forever. Door closed, locked, shut. I'm thinking _calm _is a little too much to hope for, Dean. I'm thinking '_drunk'_ will cut it better."_

_"You can't leave like this," Dean implored, "You just can't, Sammy. You can't... can't let that be the last thing you hear from him. He doesn't mean it, it's just his ass talking, you know how he gets when he's mad. Try to understand. You leave like this, you'll just hate him, and he'll just hate himself."_

_"He should have thought about that before he said it," Sam said decisively, that tone Dean knew only too well when he's absolutely made up his mind, "I'm done trying to understand him. He's our father, Dean. That's his job. Everyone here is doing their job but him. I'm done. And he wanted me out, I'm out."_

_"He doesn't want--"_

_"Stop defending him," Sam seethed, "Stop lying for him, stop covering for him, stop fucking _translating _for him. Just... _stop_. I got a right to be angry about this, Dean. _You_ have an even bigger right to be mad. Come with me."_

_"I can't," Dean said, plainly, "I can't, Sammy. I'm nothing where you're going. I'm not gonna be any use to anybody. You don't need me getting in your way. And dad needs me here."_

_"He doesn't need either of us," Sam scoffed, "Figure it out, Dean. He doesn't need _anybody_. You're nothing here too."_

_Dean's eyes watered, and his throat tightened. His face could have physically _closed_. He gulped, and looked Sam dead in the eye._

_"You need to get away," he said softly, "Dad needs to do what he needs to do. I need to know you're both safe. You'll be fine where you're going, and I can never know what trouble the old man'll get into next. I gotta watch his back, 'cos you're right, he never thinks he needs anybody, but I know I'm right when I say that he _does_. I guess we all just have to be wherever we need to be."_

" " "

2009

" " "

Sam still listened to him after all, _some of the time._

The two brothers stood by their respective beds, quietly gathering their meager belongings from the dorm room that they have been occupying at the New York office on and off for the last few months since Castiel introduced them to the place.

"So you got your marching orders yet?" Dean asked him.

"Yeah," Sam said, "They got some traces of Lilith having some sort of a tea party over in the English countryside, so we gotta take a look."

"I heard Ruby's on your team," Dean said, "Have you ever been told that _fraternizing_ at the office doesn't work?"

Sam just smirked at him, as he folded his shirts, "How about you?"

"I can fraternize with anybody anywhere."

Sam laughed, "Where are you headed now, you jackass."

"I can trump your trans-Atlantic office-romance," Dean said sarcastically, "I am headed to butt-crack-middle-of-nowhere, y'all. Road tripping with Castiel and the crew. Beat that, bitch."

"I can't see how," Sam chuckled.

Dean smiled and paused, looked at Sam thoughtfully. "Hey, Sammy?"

"Hm?" Sam asked, looking up at him curiously.

"Thanks for uh..." Dean hesitated, "For not giving me too much grief about this, huh? I'd have... I'd have raised hell, if it was the other way around, we both know that."

"Are we making our last few minutes together 'socially awkward?'" Sam chided.

"I had to put up with it," Dean said, embarrassed now, looking down at his bag and pretending to be busy, "So now it's your turn."

"Ha."

"Maybe I'm just surprised you still listen to me after all," Dean joked.

"I listen," Sam argued.

" " "

_2008_

" " "

_Dean didn't realize until later that he had just stood there useless, frozen and wide-open, defenseless, vulnerable to attack. _

_Monsters he had stopped fearing for a good long while now. Credible apocalyptic prognoses, demons walking the earth, that sort of thing... they were more... more... actionable things, really, rather than the kinds of scary things that rendered a guy deaf and dumb and frozen, useless, scared-shitless, standing apart from the action and just staring, unable to move, barely able to breathe._

_Things like a kid brother going dark side, for one. Things like that._

_Samhain didn't exist to him at all which was really bordering on suicidal, much less the demon's freshly-raised bit-players, these ghosts and zombies that were supposed to jump him from the dark and drag him dead with them. Instead, the world shrank around Sammy again, the way it was wont to._

_His younger brother knew he was there, though the force by which he had fought one of the most powerful, most dark demons that have ever walked the Earth barely showed a break in his concentration. Must have been a gift he acquired all those years trying to study while Dean was singing aloud in the car. Or bugging him in the motel. Whatever. Sammy-fricking-King-of-multi-tasking. Their dad said Dean was a distraction. Dean sure showed him; it was _training_._

_The demon fell to the ground. Dean didn't doubt that it was properly dispatched. Sam tended to be thorough like that. Sam looked up at his brother gradually, in weird breaks, like his eyes were working their way up a short flight of stairs. Gaze on Dean's necklace, up his parted, awed lips, finally up to his eyes, looking for condemnation by the expression on his face and finding... finding... Dean wasn't sure. His face felt funny, god knows what Sam spotted there. _

_Dean was afraid, for one, and though this was a condition he's been massively reacquainted with lately after his sojourn in hell, it still felt strange as a helpless, uncontrolled expression on his face. He was also disappointed in his brother, which was something that was still very, very hurtfully new. Fresh. Like a fucking gunshot wound someone just keeps digging and digging into--_

_Sam's nose bled freely, and he pressed his palms to his head, clutching it and breathing hard. He crumbles to his knees, and Dean doesn't hesitate to move forward. He dumps his things on the floor - they too would vanish from his world as surely as Samhain had. He reached to put his hands over Sam's shaking ones, and his rings tangled with the waves of his kid brother's unruly hair as he clutched at Sam's head too, supporting it from what was unquestionably a massive headache, and at the same time, clutching hard as if he could keep whatever was trying to burst from in there from getting out._

_Sam leaned into his touch, rocking himself as he rode the headache, letting Dean hold his head as he freed one of his hands and swiped at the blood streaming from his nose. From the corner of Dean's eye, he spotted the light but unrelenting hemorrhage make droplets on the floor._

_"Has this ever happened before?" Dean asked him, gruffly, "The bleeding?"_

_"Yes," Sam gasped, "Not this bad, but I know I just gotta ride it."_

_"No hospital?" Dean asked, even if he already knew the answer._

_"Can't," Sam struggled, "Can't care to explain all this. And they can't do anything."_

_Dean nodded in understanding, and set his jaw determinedly. Okay. So this was on him, right? What was so new about that?_

_"Think you can stand?" Dean asked._

_"I," Sam hesitated, and he stopped rocking himself, lowered his hands to his sides, where they hung limply, because his shoulders were stooped. On his knees with his shoulders stooped and his head bowed, he looked uncharacteristically defeated._

_Dean fell to his knees in front of Sam, lowered his own head, wanting to be looked at. "Hey, hey--" he was saying, calling to his brother gently, before his body physically jerked with the sudden, icy remembrance of one other time the two of them knelt before each other like this._

_"Can you stand?" Dean asked again, voice strained. He was starting to feel dizzy, dizzy with his responsibilities, dizzy with the damned crazy night, dizzy with the stupid memories of Cold Oak._

_"I got it," Sam drawled, but he already sounded half-drunk, an image he reinforced when he tried to lurch to his feet only to tilt against Dean, who was ill-prepared for his effort, or to catch him. They both floundered a little for a more proper balance, before Dean, grunting, took the reins._

_"I'm done swimming, Sammy," he said, grabbing one of his younger brother's arms and slinging it over his shoulder, "We're doin' this my way. If you're ever gonna listen to me about anything ever again, it's gonna be this."_

_"Yeah, yeah," Sam sighed, and Dean buckled a little at the sudden addition of weight, as Sam fell against him more freely, made him feel like a big brother again._

_"I gotcha," Dean said determinedly, "I gotcha."_

" " "

2009

" " "

"See?" Dean pointed out triumphantly, "Some lawyer you make, objection with no proof! You know, before I went to the Pit, you used to call _me_ bossy. You don't anymore, 'cos you know as well as I do that the regime has ended."

"You _are_ bossy," Sam insisted.

"Used to be," Dean corrected, thinking back. Because it had once been _Get the kids out of the basement, Sam_, or _I'll lure the monster truck away, Sam_, or _Keep the crossroad-dealing pathetic guy alive, Sam_, or _I'll draw the fire of the hunters who want to kill you, Sam_, and so on. Sam's been doing a lot of the commanding lately. Since when had it been _deal with the zombie dregs, Dean, I'll get Samhain the head honcho_? Since when had it been _You're going into the creepy log factory_? Or even, _Quit picking on that_?

_When'd you grow up, Sammy_?

The thought would have terrified him, Sam breaking out of baby-brother mode like this. Stanford terrified him, didn't it, when Sam left? Hell, even the way Sam's voice started to escalate in arguments with their father, symbolizing his growth and rise once terrified him too. And there was the day he realized Sam was gonna be taller than him and _that_ scared the _shit_ out of him the most.

Today, though... the idea of Sam's strength was giving him a sense of peace. The year before he went to hell, he hadn't been sure. The year after he got back from hell, he hadn't been sure either. But now... he knew it in his bones. Sam really was stronger than him. Sam really could be okay without him. It was an assuring, strengthening thought, now that they were parting ways again.

"You uh," Dean hesitated, "You know how strong I think you are, bro?"

"Where's this going?" Sam asked, a little bit shaken.

"I'm just saying this 'cos it needs saying," Dean said, averting his eyes, "When you were a baby, mom died right in front of you. You couldn't have known what it all meant, but still. And then Jess died. And you're the one who found dad dead, and I got chewed up while you were watching."

Sam's eyes, _god_, those eyes that have seen too much, darkened in memory, "What are you saying, Dean?"

"I'd have lost it," Dean told him, "If you think about it, I did, when dad was gone. And again, when you were. But you'll be fine. I know it for real, now, and I'm glad. Take care of yourself, Sammy. 'Cos... 'cos I can't be around for you this time."

"I lost it when you were gone," Sam pointed out, "I trod that line. I still can."

"I don't think it's gonna happen this time," Dean soothed.

"Well you're not gonna die," Sam told him, slowly and surely, "So it doesn't matter."

Dean's lips quirked. And there went grown-up Sam again, with his assurances. It wasn't always like this, but Dean was surprisingly fine with that. Sam was going to be just fine without him, now.

" " "

_2003_

" " "

_The world looked slightly different, every time Sam opened his eyes._

_It started out with blurry black, the indistinct, dream-like quality of swirly ink the only indication that his eyes were even open at all. He floated in that dully-dark space for awhile, until the blackness sharpened and fully exerted itself, and he was blindly under again._

_Dull gray, after. Also a blur. Sick, pale purple, like the cusp of night and daybreak on a defiantly moonlit, barren field. The dull gray touched plain, unadorned walls, and the evening light from the window –_ oh, a window! _- cast everything in a coldly resonant glow. Life fades to black._

_And then there was light, in offensive, unabashed white. White from the window, bouncing against the white from the curtains, the white from the walls, the white from the sheets. It looked like an ad for a detergent. The blackness ate it up, greedily, like ink spilling on crisp paper._

_And then warm amber bathed the room in an unearthly light; it embraced, it seduced, and suddenly, the ravenous blackness beckoned not at all, and his vision sharpened slightly, enough for him to realize that he wasn't alone._

_The other figure in the room is slightly hunched, carefully drawn into a posture of self-containment. He is a shadow, standing against the window and its featured sunset. He was all heavy clothes over a powerfully-compact bulk, swagger distinct and familiar and homely as he turned toward Sam._

_"Dad?" Sam whispered, licking his lips, "Is that you?"_

_The figure stepped forward, lowered his head enough such that the angle of the light changed, and the face that neared his own was perfectly recognizable now. Unmistakable. And he wondered how he had even gotten it wrong._

_Dark blond head was haloed by the sunset, and his skin was golden where his freckles didn't share the color of fall leaves, and his weary, glassy eyes looked see-through silver-gray in this perfect light._

_"Dean," Sam breathed, recognizing his brother, and his heart beat a little faster; it was pure, instinctive joy. He breathed harder, and reached out blindly._

_"Sammy," Dean said in a low voice, reaching for his hand with no reservation or hesitation, and held on tight, "Thank god."_

_The blackness was creeping again, but Sam did not mind. He could skip the sights of the sunset glow; his cold hand was engulfed and warm in his older brother's, and that touch trumped everything else._

" " "

_The world was different again, the next time he woke._

_Gone was the glorious afternoon sunset and the warmth of reunion. It was replaced by a pitch black night broken only by the light of the overly-sanitized industrial white street-lamps that leaked from between the blinds on his window, and the glowering scowl that was carved into his brother's face as he looked at Sam from across the room._

_He had wondered how he might have mistaken Dean for their father, and now he knew. The clothes were dad's. The posture was dad's. The scowl was damned his too. While there was nothing new in Dean's John Winchester 'interpretation ('impersonation' didn't quite cut it, as he added his own wacky flair),' the hunched posture of barely restrained frustration and the seemingly steaming anger beneath the frigid exterior was all John's, and seemed strange, befalling Dean's aura like this._

_In short... he had never seen Dean this mad before._ Ever_._

_It was the kind of expression that made a guy think about all his sins, and call out for a priest for some extreme unction action. _

_"What the hell were you thinking?" Dean asked him, voice low and dark. He made no move forward; he looked like a watchful predator in the shade, only parts of him visible, streaked by the light that seeped from the blinds._

_Sam cleared his throat. His older brother wasn't going to be pulling punches, apparently, even for the severely injured. Sam licked his lips, trying to buy time._

_"You lucid or what?" Dean snapped, pushing off the wall and making his way to Sam's side. Almost spitefully, he swipes at a plastic cup on the night table, fills it with water, and, just when Sam thought it was either going to get shoved down his throat or tossed on his face, Dean's grip was unmistakably gentle as he helped his younger brother drink, even as his eyes turned colder._

_"You here?" Dean asked him, gruffly, putting the cup back down._

_Sam had a feeling he was going to regret it but he nodded._

_"The moment you get outta here, I'm gonna kick your ass," Dean swore, "Mark my word. And if you ever pull a stunt like that again, I'm kicking you so hard my boot's coming from up your ass and out yer pie-hole, you hear me?"_

Why's he so mad_? Sam wondered, bringing a shaky hand up to the side of his head, which was just-now beginning a dull throb. His fingers brushed a bandage, and he figured that ought to explain a lot._

_The throb escalated to blinding, engulfing pain._

_He dove back under, cowardly into the dark, hoping the world would look different again when he woke up next._

" " "

_It did._

_Dean was asleep on the chair next to his bed, gracelessly sprawled and just wide open, including his mouth. Still disoriented, Sam's gaze drifted to the floor, inanely looking for the strings that have been cut off from his brother-the-puppet. Dean looked that exhausted, even without the sunken eyes, or by the very fact that he was asleep watching Sam in the first place._

Waitaminute_, Sam thought, heart beating a little faster, and there was a machine to his left that echoed it. Dean stirred at the sound._

Tell-tale heart...

_He closed his eyes, wanting the dark to take him, calling unto it now actively._

Take me, take me, I don't wanna deal with this.

You're not supposed to be here_, he thought of Dean, just as the man in question gasped himself awake._

_"Sammy, you awake?" Dean asked, sounding very much alert now. Sam heard the scraping of the chair, and the subtle sound his brother's feet made as he rose and leaned over him._

_"Sammy?"_

_"Um," Sam mumbled, opening one eye, and then the other. Vaguely, he remembered golden halos and a warm hand on his, interspersed with the memory of glinting eyes and a cold, low threat, all coming from the same, apparently wildly-contradictory man._

_"Hey, you with me?" Dean asked, eyes earnest, searching, "You all here, bro?"_

_He muttered the first thing that came to mind._

_"What?" Dean asked patiently, lowering his head toward Sam's mouth._

_"You're schizophrenic," Sam muttered._

_Dean backed away, stung and quite angry. And, as if to illustrate Sam's observation, his earnest eyes hardened and widened like they were a breath away from popping out._

_"I'm schizophrenic?" Dean asked, indignantly, voice rising, "I'm schizophrenic? Well excuse me, Professor. I've been out of my mind worrying about my stupid, stupid brother, and yeah, if I'm torn between mothering you and smothering you with those damn pillows it couldn't possibly be my fault, all right? You're the schizoid. When you go off to college, you're supposed to be safe. When you're Joe College, you're supposed to study. You don't go on hunts, even if it's nearby. You pick up the phone and call me, or dad, or any of our contacts around here. You don't get your head bashed in 'cos you're out-of-practice and fucking alone, you hear me? You picked college, you were supposed to be safe. You left hunting, you were supposed to stay gone. If I had known you were gonna go off and hunt on your own anyway, I'd never have let you leave."_

Oh_, Sam realized, the details starting to come back to him now, although its magnitude... not so much. That's why Dean was pissed. _Oh_._

_"Oh."_

_Could those eyes go any larger? _Oh yes_._

_"Oh?!"_

_"I'm sorry?" Sam tried._

_"Goddamn--"_

_"Thank you for being here," Sam said, quietly. And meant it, from the very, very bottom of his heart._

_Of course that would get Dean._

_Dean took a deep breath, and sighed it out, along with all of his rage. He pinched the bridge of his nose._

_"I'm supposed to be here," Dean muttered, "I was supposed to be... there. I haven't... haven't told dad what happened yet. Not sure if it was because I suspected you weren't up to seeing him, or if it was because I couldn't figure out how to tell him I almost got you killed."_

_"_I_ almost got _me_ killed," Sam murmured, in correction._

Same thing_, Dean didn't bother saying._

_"How'd you know?" Sam asked him, "How'd you know where I was? How'd you find me?"_

_Dean ignored him and just sat back down warily, his eyes holding Sam's gaze. He scratched the back of his neck uneasily. Sam caught the flash of white on his wrist when his sleeve rode up with the movement. Bandages, and not thin and lightly done either. Thick, and once he caught sight of it, traced it from wrist to forearm, and then up to the arm itself. He narrowed his eyes in thought, not bothering to hide his discovery._

_"You okay?" Sam asked._

_"Someone had to clean up your mess," Dean said, eyes cold, eyes cruel. Sam winced._

_"I don't even remember," he admitted, fingers drifting up to the bandage on his head again. His brows furrowed, as he struggled to remember the apparently self-imposed Stanford hunt that brought him here. His mind was a frustrating, achy blank._

_"I'm not surprised," Dean said._

_"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam murmured, feeling tired and unhappy now. Feeling inadequate. And he couldn't quite remember anything about it. All he knew was that he went on a hunt, got into a tight spot, needed his older brother to save him, older brother somehow did, and consequently got hurt. College and Stanford or no, whenever Sam finds trouble, well...somehow, Dean always finds Sam, apparently._

_"I'm sorry," he said again, "How'd you find me, Dean? How'd you know?"_

_"No more loner hunt shit, Sammy," Dean told him instead of answering, "No hunting without me or dad. I mean it." Dean demanded, before his look and voice softened to imploring, "Please."_

_"I promise," Sam vowed._

" " "

2009

" " "

Of all other times his older brother could have picked to let Sam go, _of all other times_, it was up against the end of the world. How screwed up was that?

"So you're finally letting me go, huh?" Sam asked.

"Never," Dean said with a cocky grin, but that was just semantics. Figurative, you know. Of all the good that ever did them.

"Well you got a problem," Sam said.

"I got lots of problems," Dean joked.

"Neither of us are going anywhere," Sam said. But they were just words again. _Figurative_. "You're not dying, Dean. Neither am I. I'll see you, when this is over."

"I know," Dean said, quietly, averting his eyes, "I'm just saying if we don't, it's kind-of okay. You'll be fine."

"And if I was the one who died, will you be?"

"I won't be," Dean said, obtusely, "So it's a good thing that's not gonna happen."

Sam zipped his duffel closed, rubbed hands over his weary face. He sat on his neat bed, checked his watch.

"When are you leaving?" Dean asked.

"In five," Sam said.

Dean pursed his lips, and nodded. He wasn't done packing, but he shoved everything in gracelessly and zipped up his bag too, and then sat beside his brother. Their sleeves touched, comfortably.

"I wonder what dad's thinking, watching us now," Sam said, "Like we're a bunch of marines, huh? Being sent off to the war."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, quietly. He wondered what life would have been like if they had lived in a different time. If he and Sam were being sent to Germany or Korea or Vietnam instead. Or, if one were to be more current, if he was headed to Iraq or Afghanistan instead.

"So five minutes," Dean breathed, "Now _that's_ awkward."

"And no radio too," Sam joked, "How are we gonna do this?"

"Can we talk about chicks?" Dean asked, optimistically.

"You haven't seen ass in months, dude," Sam laughed, "So no, I'm not in the mood for science fiction right now."

"You're always in the mood for sci-fi, geekboy," Dean said.

"You didn't correct me," Sam said, enlightened, "How tragic, bro."

"Shut up."

"So you're all set for this, right?" Sam asked, worriedly, "I mean, you were just in the hospital and everything."

"Lying there won't do me any good if we lose anyway," Dean said, "So I might as well give this a shot."

"Castiel's gonna be with you?"

"Yeah," Dean said, "I'm kinda relieved about that."

"He's okay," Sam said.

"He's kinda like us," Dean added, "I think he's just finding that out, and I think he hates that, it mucks up his daddy-knows-everything world-view. But I think it makes him the best of 'em. He actually wants to save this god-forsaken place, not just out of obeying a command. He actually _wants_ to."

"Yeah," Sam nodded, thinking back to the first time he had met the angel. It took him forever, but Castiel had found it in himself to shake Sam's hand. He was a fair player, and had sympathy for the plight of humanity. The only thing Sam couldn't ever like about him though, was this... this inalienable feeling of jealousy. Or... jealousy was too simple, too petty. He felt like Castiel was trespassing on his territory. Sam was the only one who was supposed to understand Dean. Sam was the only one who was supposed to know him inside-out. Sam was the one who was supposed to have saved him. Sam was the one who was supposed to stand beside Dean at the end of everything...

"He'll take care of you," Sam said, pursing his lips thoughtfully, "That's good."

"You know where Bobby's gonna be?" Dean asked.

"They're picking his brain here," Sam said, "It's the right thing to do. Few people know their stuff like Bobby Singer. Most of the places we're all headed is from his analysis. He's also tapping into some more hunter networks who can maybe help us out. You know all the other baddies, ghosts and monsters in the world don't necessarily rest just because the demons have an agenda. We're stretched so thin."

"I wish dad was here," Dean said, "He'd be running around like a fricking general."

"I really hate war," Sam sighed, "_Why can't we all just get along_?"

"Yeah, like you and Ruby, huh?" Dean snorted, "No thanks."

Sam just smiled and shook his head at Dean in amused dismay. And then his look turned wistful, because it was hard to ignore that five minutes was over. He patted Dean's arm, as he rose to his feet. He patted it again, and then couldn't seem to find it in himself to lift his hand away from there. He clutched at the fabric of Dean's clothes, and knew he was in trouble.

_Uh-oh_...

"_Let's hug it out, bitch_," Dean said to his relief, breaking his panic, recognizing that Sam was in trouble. Dean rose and embraced his younger brother like both their lives depended on it, because it was probably true. Sam hugged back, just as fiercely.

" " "

Dean held on to his brother, and he didn't think either of them could breathe, but what the heck, he was dying soon anyway. Now, later, what's the difference?

He closed his eyes and gripped Sam tight. He wanted to bawl like a girl, because holding Sam now, he wondered what the hell he was thinking, allowing them to be assigned apart anyway? Can he still back out? Can he still back out?

But the thought was futile, and impotent, and he just held on.

The embrace felt like a fucked-up time-loop because they were parting, and yet it felt like he just found Sam again. Because the last time they hugged it out like this was when Dean just got back from hell. Surreal, how the embrace of parting felt just like the embrace of reunion, and they interspersed confusingly, bits of memory one on top of the other, mixed up and indiscriminate. A parting that felt like a reunion... dual purpose hugging, like getting drunk because you're celebrating and getting drunk because your life has gone to shit, and both hangovers equally shitty. But this was okay, Dean thought. Because if reunions can feel like partings and partings can feel like reunions, maybe they'll see each other again after all.

"Be careful out there, big brother," Sam said, leaning into the space by Dean's neck and shoulder. Damned Sasquatch fit like the space was made just for him, and Sam was arrogant enough to think so too.

"Be good, Sammy," Dean said, gulping. Was that it? Was that the last word? But it was so anti-climactic. The world was ending, can't he think of a better line? _Remember what I taught you_ had been fricking _great_. But he hasn't taught Sam anything in awhile, has he? And he couldn't pretend that this wasn't a big deal, no, he couldn't.

_What does Sam need to hear most_, Dean wondered, _What's Sam most afraid of_?

"Remember," Dean said, "You're a nice guy, all right? All that demon blood shit aside, that's just logistics. When people die, they leave the shell and the blood behind, right? That means they don't matter. You don't need to make up for anything. You don't need anyone to save you, Sammy."

What Sam said to that made Dean's eyes sting, because he realized Sam must have been wondering about what his older brother needed to hear the most too, what he was most afraid of.

"That's only 'cos you already have, Dean."

**To be continued** (I think)...

Thanks for reading. Comments and constructive criticism as welcome as always!


	2. Burn

Author:Mirrordance

Title: **Steps Behind**

Summary:56 seals down, 10 left to open. It's 2009, and Lucifer's standing on the welcome mat. At the eve of the final battle in a losing war, the Winchesters make their last goodbyes, and at this end of days, Dean is finally learning to let Sam go.

**Hi gang**!

Thanks so much for all who read, favorite-d, alert-ed and especially all who reviewed Chapter 1. I really appreciate your thougthts and encouragement :) In response to some queries, however, I can guarantee you that the death/tragedy aspect of this story will unquestionably unfold. I know I'll be losing a whole lot of people on this premise, but you know how you think of lines and scenes and can't shake the need to jot it down? I can't shake it, haha, and I guess this'll just have to be another one of those stories that were written just for the sake of being able to move on and do something else, haha. Either way, I always welcome your thoughts, and hope that I'll be able to retain some of you through 'til the end :)

C*C's always welcome. Thanks for taking the time and catch you at the next post :)

" " "

_**2: Burn**_

" " "

2009

" " "

Dean sat on the edge of his bed, just taking in the quiet, forlorn room. The dorm had always tended toward the spartan, but with Sam gone it just looked bleak and lonely, and he suddenly felt more sore and deeply unhappy. He winced at Sam's empty bed, and uncapped his painkillers and chugged down two. He closed his eyes and waited for the detachment to kick in.

Dean raised his head at the sound of someone appearing by the door. The brunette incarnation of a being he once-loathed -Ruby, appeared. She looked a bit rushed, and her brows rose at the sorry-sight of him.

"Sam?" she inquired, economically.

"Don't you always know where he is?" Dean asked.

She paused and leaned by the doorframe, but stayed well outside the room as if there was a salt line at the entrance. "I don't get to use my demonic mojo around here. They look at me funny."

Dean actually chuckled at that. Yeah, he couldn't even curse in the hallways, after all. "He left already."

The theoretically simple answer hurt in a way that he could never explain. _ He left already_...The hurt must have streaked across his eyes though, because Ruby suddenly looked torn between sympathetic and uneasy, speaking of awkward situations. Dean just cleared his throat.

"So I guess you're going with him huh?"

Ex-witch demon actually looked relieved he was taking the helm on this one. Dean marveled at the strangeness of humanizing reactions like that; it reminded him of Castiel. Angel and demon, oddly enough, both learning to be a little bit more human.

"Yeah," Ruby said warily.

"Never thought I'd say this," Dean said, "But that's good. You got his back, right?"

"Always," she guaranteed, simply.

"Can I ask you something?" Dean asked, after a thoughtful moment.

"I got some time," she encouraged.

"Why?" Dean asked, "Why my brother? You, tailing him around like this. I know you're all right so it's not like, I'm questioning if you're lying or pretending or whatever. I'm done with that. It's an honest-to-god question. I'm just asking what the hell is wrong with you."

"Ha," she said, wryly. She pursed her lips, before answering him seriously. "I told you once, I'm not like the others and I don't like what they're doing. Nothing noble about it, really. I had preferences and incidentally they were good, even if I stopped being that a long time ago. That's also why I'm pretty sure I'm still not headed to heaven after everything. I'm not trying to get there, I'm just trying to make whatever's here better, because this is the best that someone like me can have. It started out that Sam was nothing but a way to stop them, and consequently make my eternity walking the earth a little more bearable. And then... I don't know. You watch him long enough, talk to him long enough, be with him long enough and... it felt like it was just a matter of time, really. It's hard not to love your brother, Dean, you of all people know that. I mean I'm not an idiot. I know he doesn't love me but it doesn't matter... he's like, an honest-to-god good guy. How the hell does anyone swing that?"

"He said _I _did it," Dean said, cockily.

She wasn't in the mood to joke about it. "I know you did."

His mouth quirked in appreciation.

"I should go," she said, "Take care of yourself out there, Dean."

His eyes had softened and then hesitated. She put up her hand when he started to say something else. "If you're gonna try to thank me, please spare us both. Don't try to thank me _ever _again. The last one was painful."

He smirked at her. "Sure thing, bitch."

"Better," she brightened, "Keep yourself alive, dickhead. For Sam, huh?"

He made no promises, and just waved her off.

" " "

Castiel hopped off the helicopter smartly, just as Sam stepped out into the landing pad at the top of the building. Castiel was flanked by Uriel and a few other angels, and he let them pass him by as he stood with Sam on the roof.

"Hey," Sam greeted uneasily, hoisting his duffel up to his shoulder more securely.

"I hope you do not share your brother's disdain for great heights," Castiel said, jerking his head at the whirring helicopter, even as Sam wondered and bristled at how he could have known that.

"Nah, I'm good," Sam said, curbing his irrepressible irritation.

"That will serve you well," Castiel nodded, mouth tightening grimly.

They fell into silence.

_Awkward_, Dean would have said.

"I am glad that you are amenable to the situation," Castiel said cautiously, "We feared your dissent."

"You would," sighed Sam, looking away. He shook his head. "There's just no stopping him when he sets his mind to something."

"You are the last person in the world who has a right to say that," Castiel told him, mildly. Sam's brows rose. He was never quite sure what to make of remarks like that.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You can always get your brother to do anything," Castiel clarified.

"Oh," Sam winced, "That. Most of the time, I guess. Not... this one."

Castiel opened his hands in acquiescence.

"He's uh..." Sam hesitated, "He's still hurt, you know."

"He will be ready when it is his time to act," Castiel guaranteed.

"Don't let him push himself too hard," Sam said, "He never knows..."

"I understand," Castiel said.

"You don't," Sam corrected, biting his tongue at _Not like I do_. "You've got a job to do and he's useful, I understand that. But... but he's not built like you. He's not made like you. He gets hurt, he gets scared, he..." Sam pursed his lips, sighed, "I know you can't promise me he'll live. But watch him. _Please_. Someone has to."

"I do," Castiel said.

Sam stared at him for a long moment, before nodding. He felt like he should be saying more. So much more...

"He's all I have..." Sam breathed, "And that doesn't mean anything else to anybody, but... but you have to know that. I don't know God but... but if anyone cares about things like that, it's gotta be Him, right? And you work for Him, so you gotta... gotta just... do your best."

"It is not for him that you should fear, Sam," Castiel said.

He could have rolled his eyes. "I should be scared for _me_, right? What I might do, what I might become? What do I have to do to convince you people that--" the words sputtered and died after him, "Nevermind."

"I'm going to tell you something that you may not have thought about," Castiel said after a moment of thought, "She didn't know it at the time, but when your mother saved your father's life, she sold you out. Your father in turn, sold himself to save Dean. And then, as if by some design, Dean then sold himself to save you. It's a neat little circle isn't it? All the debts coming back to where it began, giving back to the first who had lost. Even the loose ends in your periphery are justly tied; your mother's killer, Jessica's killer... gone from all living, properly dispatched."

"What about it?" Sam asked.

"The debts are paid," Castiel said, "The slate wiped clean. Everything you do from here on out is not a consequence of making up for the mistakes of someone else's past. No more soul-selling to save someone, no more seeking out vengeance for what was taken from you. This time, there is just right and wrong, good and evil, and what you choose to do about it."

"Right or wrong," Sam repeated, skeptical, "But it's never that simple, is it? And you cannot believe that the lines are drawn so clean, not when you're keeping me at a position where I can use the powers one of you once said I could be turned to _dust_ for using."

"A fair point," Castiel conceded, "And yet one's back is pressed against the wall also. Options ought be kept open. We've more than once before have brought entire civilizations to death and ruin, for one reason or other – seemingly atrocious acts made necessary, at times. How hard is to believe that a good man with an evil gift may be used as a final chance at victory?"

"The ends justify the means?" Sam scoffed, "There's always a plan? God works in mysterious ways?"

"I am a soldier of God," Castiel said, "Not His prophet, or His messenger. I cannot give you answers I do not have myself, Sam."

"God's not big on answers anyway," Sam said, quietly, averting his eyes. "Hey, uh... '_The Star_.' Arthur C. Clarke. Look it up or better, make Dean tell you about it."

Castiel's brows furrowed in confusion.

"I guess we both gotta go," Sam said, uneasily.

Castiel offered him a hand to shake. Sam hesitated for a second, but clasped it warmly.

" " "

Dean left the Impala parked in the New York building.

If he was gonna get snuffed out in this fight, she sure as hell was not coming along with him. Which of course, brought in the question of transportation, and his current predicament.

"You should calm down," the angel told him, voice level, "This road may be the last chance you can get of your rest."

"I am calm," Dean lied, right through his teeth, right through his wide, staring eyes. The angel was driving a hybrid rental. _The angel was driving a hybrid rental_.

Castiel glanced at him for the barest second.

"You keep your eyes on the damn road!" Dean spat out before slapping a hand over his mouth, unable to help himself.

"This is the least of your problems," Castiel said, making a neat turn. He wasn't bad, actually. It's just that... that... it was _wrong_.

"Settle," Castiel murmured, "These hands have--"

"Raised me from Perdition," Dean finished irritably, "Yeah, yeah, I know how it goes, all right? I trust those hands, whatever. It's just that this is so fricking wrong. I didn't even know you could drive."

"This vessel could drive," Castiel said of his body, mildly, "And I would be equally equipped by the Lord even if it were not, if the task was to be in His service. All He needs is a 'yes,' and all means will follow."

Dean sighed, and sank lower in the passenger seat. He was weary and hurting, but also wired. And maybe the chick-seat frequented by the likes of his brother inspired chick-conversations too.

"Cas," he began, "Where do dead angels go?"

"They are cast into nothingness," Castiel replied, "As far as I know. Perhaps the Lord has other plans for them. I do not know. I almost envy you, Dean... that your death should bring you elsewhere, even if this Earth should be lost to the hordes of hell. To our Heaven it should seem at this point, but that is not my choice or decree to make. But if I die in this field, there is a true possibility I will end."

"You think I'm headed to Heaven?" Dean smirked, trying to diffuse the air, "_Nice_."

Castiel's lips tightened in concession, but wisely did not indulge him.

"You scared?" Dean asked.

"Even Christ asked His Father why," Castiel said, after a long moment, "I cannot be better, stronger, more wise. But is that fear? Is that distrust? Disappointment?"

"Maybe it's just a question," Dean said, knowingly cleverly, making the angel beside him actually look amused for a moment.

"You know... there's some important stuff you have to know about dying," said Dean, "Since this is new territory to you and everything. Stuff you might find useful. For instance... If you think you're about to die, you're supposed to write like, one of those dear-ma-and-pa letters, or dear-wife-and-kid letters, and leave it with someone who'll live to give to them."

"This is not applicable to me."

"Okay," Dean went on, enthusiasm far from dented, "The other stuff's more basic. If you think you're about to die, you should have a To-do list. You know, a bucket-list. Things to do before you kick the bucket."

"I do not find myself wanting," Castiel replied with a shrug.

"You're such a prude--"

"Perhaps driving," Castiel murmured wryly, almost as if just to appease him, except the angelic foot pressed heavier on the gas.

"Awesome!" Dean exclaimed, obliviously, pretending to hear just whatever the heck he wanted to. He laughed. "That's good, that's good, man."

"You have not done any of these things," Castiel observed.

"No," Dean replied wistfully, shrugging and wincing at the pain in his ribs, or maybe at the thought, "I don't have anything more to say to anybody anymore. I mean, this isn't my first time around the block you know, but I think I'm finally doing it right this time. I've said everything I needed to say, and I don't want anything either. Maybe just... well I want m'brother safe, and I want him happy. But I'm figuring out more and more that I have less and less to do with that, especially now. I just gotta... gotta trust him, you know? I taught him a bunch of things, and he'll know more about other stuff than I ever will..." he scratched the back of his neck, uneasily, "He should know what to do with that. The big bro loses rights after awhile after all, I guess, haha. Nah... I don't want anything but that, and I think I've made that damn clear.

"Anyway," Dean exhaled, changing the topic before it got any more morose, "Okay. You know what else you need to know? When your teammate's dying in front of you, you're supposed to say 'Stay with me,' okay? And when they're fine, you say 'We almost lost you there,' and 'You really gave us a scare,' because everyone in the movies does that..." Dean's voice trailed off in sudden realization, "Have you ever even seen a movie? That has got to be on your list, man, if not. And no, _The Passion _doesn't count."

"_Settle_," Castiel reminded him, through grit teeth, looking grim.

"Too wired," Dean replied distractedly, "Have you ever had beer?"

Castiel ignored him.

"Shoulda slipped you a pint," Dean murmured, thoughtful. "The vessel drives, right? Can the vessel get drunk? Or high? Does the vessel have great sex?"

"You are impossible."

"I made you laugh once," Dean said wistfully, "I remember, 'cos that was the one and only time. I said, 'It's not the Tet Offensive.' Your face went scrunchy and everything. It looked like a laugh. Angels laugh. You find things funny. I know you do."

"But what is funny, Dean?" Castiel asked, making another impossibly neat turn. If Dean didn't believe in God before, Castiel's mathematically-perfect angling and smooth driving was an eye-opener.

"What the heck do you mean 'What is funny?'" Dean asked, annoyed.

"Laughter is a biological reaction," Castiel murmured, thoughtfully, "Stimulated by deep, visceral subconscious, an old memory, something that once made you happy? But joy cannot be mistaken for humor, they're distinct. There is almost something innately... ironic about humor."

Dean stared at him, wide-eyed. "It's not rocket science, dude. Man, you angels are weird. I dated this chick once, said she wanted to watch a movie, and I wanted to make out. So we went to '_City of Angels_,' bored the shit out of me, and I thought I was gonna lose it when they were trying to explain what it was like to eat a fricking pear or some other grainy fruit, I forget. And no, I wasn't like, watching-_watching_ it, okay? It was like, a weak moment or something. Anyway, 'What's funny?' 'What's funny?' Seriously, Cas. I can't answer that. I forget what's funny the longer I hang out with you."

Castiel's lip quirked again. He did find things funny; _Dean, _particularly. Whatever the hell 'funny' was.

"So you _love_ God, right?" Dean asked, wistful, "And you're _angry_ at all the sons-of-bitches who are trying to dick around with His plans, right? You get _sad_ when you lose your brothers, right? Funny's like that. It just grabs you different."

"You're funny," Castiel said, flatly.

"I've been told," Dean sighed, leaning back on his seat. _You get sad when you lose your brothers_... maybe he should have thought of a different example. 'Cos now he's sad too; he only had one to lose.

"Dean, what is _'The Star_?'" Castiel asked after a moment, after apparently sensing his maudlin.

"You mean Clarke's?" Dean clarified, surprised.

"I believe so," Castiel replied.

Dean's brows rose, "Not all that lost on the pop-culture thing after all. Ho-kay. '_The Star_.' Kinda freaks me out talking about this with you though. Like I might get struck by lightning or something. You understand it's science fiction, right? And like, figurative, or something. Like... like so-not blasphemous or something like that."

Castiel was beginning to frown, but nevertheless said evenly, "I understand."

"There's another thing you have to understand," Dean went on, "Any other story that starts with 'A Jesuit astrophysicist is on his way back to Earth' aside from this one is probably a joke, all right?"

"All right..."

"A Jesuit astrophysicist is on his way back to Earth," Dean began with a helpless grin and a shrug.

" " "

_1997_

" " "

_"Blah blah blah," Dean droned on impatiently, as he washed the dishes and Sam sat on the counter next to him in the small kitchen of their rented house. His younger brother's long legs were swinging and his shaggy hair hung over his face, lowered toward the book on his lap, "Basically, a Jesuit astrophysicist is on his way back to Earth from exploring the remains of a supernova in outer space."_

_"Basically," Sam agreed, as Dean passed him a wet plate. He kept the book on his lap, used his hands to dry off the ceramic with a paper towel, and then lowered it to the rack. "I thought you said you forgot about all this?"_

_"I said 'refresh my memory,'" Dean corrected as he sanded Sam a mug, "There's a difference, squirt."_

_"How'd you know about all this anyway?" Sam asked, nose wrinkling._

_"Saw something like it on _'The Twilight Zone_,'" Dean replied, "Fresh perspectives, Sammy. You said you were at a dead end, so let's hear it. The sooner we get your homework done, the sooner we get into some research."_

_"'_Three or four times in every thousand years_,' Sam read aloud from his book, "'_Occurs something beside which even a nova pales into total insignificance. When a star becomes a _supernova_, it may for a little while outshine all the massed suns of the galaxy.'_"_

_"And our Jesuit astrophysicist friend," Dean rushed, "Is on some sort of a mission to go look at this particular supernova and all the shit it left behind, to like, see firsthand what caused it and how it happened or something. It left behind a mess, disintegrated all the planets around it when it died."_

_"Yup," Sam affirmed, before continuing to read on, "'_We were flying into the center of a cosmic bomb that had detonated millennia ago and whose incandescent fragments were still hurtling apart..._'"_

_Dean haded him another mug, which he distractedly wiped and settled on the rack as he read aloud. He read on, as Dean handed him pans and utensils that he had just washed. It didn't take them long at all to finish the chore. Smiling mischievously to himself, Dean picked up an already washed and dried mug, and watched as Sam read on and obliviously wiped and settled it on the rack. Grinning, he picked up a plate, and did the same. And then a pan, and another mug._

_"Dean," Sam finally said, "How many people did you cook for anyw--" he looked down at the dry mug, and then at his older brother's grin, "Shit."_

_"Good thing I'm around to keep you on your toes, huh, little brother?"_

_Just to spite him, Sam folded a page to bookmark his book and closed it, as he hopped to his feet._

_"If you were on _your_ toes when you were my age," Sam said, "You'd have been as tall as me."_

_"Who told you you could stop reading?" Dean growled, glaring at Sam._

_Sam grinned, and sat on the tiny dining table instead, as Dean settled things here and there in the kitchen. He was limping a little, one of the reasons their father had kept him away from a job two states over._

_"'_No one seriously expected to find planets,'" Sam started reading again, '"If there had been any before the explosion, they would have been boiled into puffs of vapor, and their substance lost in the wreckage of the star itself. But we made the automatic search, as we always do when approaching an unknown sun, and we found a single small world circling the star at an immense distance.'"

_"Oh I remember this part," Dean said, enthusiastically, "That's the Pluto of that solar system, right? Their black sheep outcast planet. But not like its buddies, it didn't get wiped out 'cos it was far enough from the star. I told you, Sammy. It's not just about the biggest and the brightest."_

_"Ha," Sam snorted._

" " "

2009

" " "

"So everything else around the star pretty much burned up and died," Dean was continuing the story he had begun to tell Castiel, "And this one planet that was left got scarred too, but it was far enough that it survived. The exploration team found something there, this... this Vault, you know? The Jesuit and his crew couldn't miss it; there was this huge, gigantic '_Look at me_' marker there, and like, like one of those Death Star suction-ray things that just pulled them toward it. It was a sign of intelligent life. What was inside the Vault was even wackier.

"Apparently," Dean said, "There used to be a civilization in that solar system once, and these people knew their sun was dying and so were they, so they just went and preserved their history, preserved their treasures, just the things that were the most beautiful and most important to them, for future generations and travelers to see.

"So the Jesuit gets kinda morose, you know," Dean went on, "Civilizations rise and fall, _whatever_. But this was unheard of, right? Just masses of people and everything they made burnt up and lost in a total mess. He's all like, '_How could that be reconciled with the mercy of God?' _He was all like, these people seemed okay, un-evil, decent, you know? '_Why_?'

"And don't answer it," Dean snapped at Castiel, when he felt the angel take a breath and open his mouth, "It's not _me_ askin' all right? Geez."

He took a deep breath of his own, "And I'm almost done, so just let me tell the story."

" " "

_1997_

" " "

_"'_God has no need to justify His actions to man,'_" Sam read on, "'_He who built the universe can destroy it when He chooses. It is arrogance - it is perilously near blasphemy – for us to say what He may or may not do.' _Sounds like dad," Sam added with an irreverent snicker._

_"You know the people in the story burned up, right, Sam?" Dean said, wryly, "And _we're_ dad's only people, so let's hope not, huh?"_

_Sam chuckled, before continuing, "'_This I could have accepted, hard though it is to look upon whole worlds and peoples thrown into the furnace. But there comes a point when even the deepest faith must falter, and now, as I look at the calculations lying before me, I know I have reached that point at last.'_"_

" " "

2009

" " "

"What point was that?" Castiel asked.

"The Jesuit tried to count when the explosion took place," Dean replied, "And he used rocks and stuff to date the thing. Dating, you know, like, in Earth-terms, he was trying to figure out when the light from that explosion could have reached the Earth.

"That supernova," Dean concluded indulgently, "That explosion that brought waste to an entire civilization of decent people? He found out that that was the star that lit up Bethlehem when Jesus was born."

Castiel stared at him blankly, before turning back to the road.

Dean wiggled his eyebrows at the angel, "Good twist, huh? Like a total _Twilight Zone_ moment. Come to think of it, I think _The Twilight Zone_ picked up a plot that was something like that."

"It ends there," Castiel said, flatly.

"Hell yeah it ends there," Dean said, "I mean it's obviously not a fricking straightforward narrative, Cas. The Jesuit guy's all like, '_Why'd it have to be that destructive supernova, just to light up Christmas_?' or something. He could have been asking '_What the heck was God thinking_?' It's just about a guy trying to figure out what he can still believe in after everything he's seen. Hell, they could be talking about seeing movie stars without any make-up or something, and the question would still be the same. What can you still believe? Why is God letting bad things happen? He's trying to figure out why, even when he knows he's not getting an answer, and even if he thinks he might not even have any right to ask."

Dean paused, thoughtful, "Sounds kinda like you, come to think of it."

Castiel glanced at him and pursed his lips, but said nothing.

"Why on Earth you'd think about this now is beyond me," Dean murmured.

" " "

_1997_

" " "

_"So what's the question?" Dean asked._

_"Well it's a literary exercise," Sam explained, "And the teacher wanted us to write out an ending."_

_"But the story's perfect!" Dean complained._

_"Hence the term '_exercise_,'" Sam pointed out._

_"Hence-stop-talking-like-a-dickhead," Dean snapped, "An ending... geez. How long is this supposed to be and when's it due?"_

_"A couple pages," Sam shrugged, "Due at the end of winter break, so I got a week."_

_"What do you have in mind?" Dean asked._

_"Nothing yet," Sam replied, "I thought I'd pick your brain first."_

_"Yeah," Dean snorted, "Me being the foremost authority in one: education, and two: faith and religion."_

_"Well what did you think about it?" Sam asked._

_"I like the twist if that's what you mean," Dean answered._

_"No," Sam said, "I'm not asking about like, structure, or style. I wanna know what you thought about it, the idea, you know. You think God would do something like that?"_

_"I don't know God," Dean said with a shrug, "But I guess I'd go with what that Jesuit guy thought. God can do whatever the hell he wants to."_

_"But he's supposed to be good," Sam pointed out, "Why would he let something like that happen to a civilization of good, decent people, just to light up Christmas? I mean according to the Bible, that light led the magi to the place where Jesus was born, right? I mean, why? Why wipe out all those people just to do that?"_

_"I can't justify God to you, brother," Dean chuckled, "I can't even justify dad to you, and I know him inside-out. As a matter of fact, you're such a smart-ass I don't know that anyone can justify anything to you, kid."_

_"No, seriously," Sam asked, "I'm not arguing. I'm just saying _if _it can be justified, _how _can it be justified?"_

_"Aside from the 'God works in mysterious ways' shit?" Dean asked._

_"Yup."_

_"Tell you what," Dean said, licking his lips in thought, "What's paid in a trade represents the other thing's worth, right?"_

_"So?"_

_"I'm not saying I believe this," Dean said, "But _if _it could be justified, then this is is the only way I know how. A civilization died to light up the night for Jesus' birthday, right? Maybe Jesus is just that much important. We can't understand it, because all we understand is our lives and you know, it would suck to lose it just for someone's Christmas lights. But looking from the other end of that trade, maybe it's worth it. I think that's where the faith-thingie comes in. Trusting that it's worth it."_

_Sam frowned, "So how would you end the story?"_

_"Well if you're burnt for ideas," Dean said, "Think about what you would do if you were that priest-dude. If I were him, I'd take the results and burn them, hide them from everyone. 'Cos you know, people can be dicks sometimes, and we gotta protect the Order."_

_"Conspiracy theorist," Sam smirked._

_"And then I'd lose the cloth," Dean went on, "Grab a drink and grab a girl. Just to make life make sense again."_

_"Hedonist."_

_"-ists, -ists," Dean tsked, "All invented by the Man, Sammy. And the Man always gets you down."_

_"So if you were him, you'd keep it to yourself," Sam said._

_"Yup," Dean replied, "'Cos I know people would just end up losing the things they believed in, and I don't feel like catching the fall-out. Which would be shitty. So there."_

_"I'd rather know."_

_"You would," Dean sighed, "But hey. You're fourteen. Why don't you be less serious about it, and make this ending more fun."_

_"Like, how?"_

_"Give it a sci-fi spin," Dean said, gleefully, "They return to Earth's orbit and find it a mess, you know? Because the same thing happened, and the world burned to a crisp to light up a supernova for something else. Now the expedition team is stranded in space. The very last of the human race, and they need to procreate--"_

_"I don't know how you do it," Sam laughed, "But you just made it sound like porn."_

" " "

2009

" " "

Dean fell asleep and slept a good, long while. Dreamless and nightmare-free. Painkiller-fueled, weary, deep sleep, the only good kind he could get lately. He stirred only when the car made a smooth stop, and he woke fully only when he felt the angel's hand on his shoulder, that exact spot Castiel had held when he pulled Dean free from Hell, incidentally.

"I'm up," Dean drawled, blinking himself to better awareness and looking around, out the window. They had pulled over in front of nowhere, it seemed. There were no structures around them, and no trees but ones that were lining a thin, distant horizon. All that there was were miles and miles of dusted road and sand around a small, busted-up bar that looked like the post-apocalyptic version of the already-weathered Harvelle's Roadhouse, back when it was still standing. It was made of wood aged by years and the whipping winds and sand, all sick-pale brown or white-streaked charred black. There were cracks in the wood, and bullet holes that could have come from god-knows-when. The damn place was frozen in the Great Depression.

Dean had stood on a lot of quirky battlefields before. He had stood up to evil borrowing his father's face in an old hunting cabin. He had stood up to evil in an old cowboy cemetery. He had stood up to evil in beautiful suburbia. A fucked-up, rundown bar in the middle of nowhere sounded right up his alley.

"I did say," Castiel murmured, "We would be sent to the most indefensible of outposts, did I not? The seal is in there."

"Nothing's gonna physically secure that miserable hole," Dean assessed, "Any marks we make on the sand to create wards around it and keep the demons out are gonna get blown by the wind. This terrain is just sick; we can see anyone coming from miles away but we're not gonna be able to do much about it, and it's open all around, they can just surround us from all angles, no wall behind our backs. If the damn seals are so important, who the hell put one inside a crap bar in a shithole?"

"Some seals are unabashedly structurally protected," Castiel explained, as he opened the car door, "Others have had to rely on disguise. This is one of them."

"And then everything gets fucked the moment the baddies know about it," Dean said, stepping out of the car too, and closing the door. There were a few angels waiting for them by the bar entrance. It struck Dean that teleporting-Castiel really could have just snapped his fingers to get here, instead of riding with an injured human stuck in his mortal limitations.

"You can grab me from hell and send me back in time but not snap your fingers and bring me here?" Dean asked, "That's just selfish."

"The powers are not to be used so liberally," Castiel said, "Restraint is what separates us from the others. You know this. That is why they too are not used in your healing."

"I was just yanking your chain, man," Dean said, "So defensive."

They walked into the bar. It sounded like the beginning of a really good _two men walk into a bar_ joke, but he hasn't heard an awesome one in awhile that he could initiate Castiel with.

There were other angels there, hardy-looking ones, not like the accountant Castiel preferred walking around in. They looked so burly and tough that some of the angels could have borrowed vessels from the UFC or the WWE... even the one woman among them. He knew all of them from past missions before, and knew full-well he was sent here with some of the very best.

Elizabeth he remembered as being known for some sort of a wacky story defending a seal at the peak of a snowy mountain in the middle of a snowstorm. There was some quip about an avalanche too, but Dean wasn't sure that was true. The rest of the angels there had a story or two like that to tell too – Christian, Ian, Jude, all of them. Cool-as-a-cucumber Castiel too, of course. Kind of overwhelms a normal, human guy just recently pulled out of hell. Dean wondered at what they might have heard about him.

"So what are we dealing with, here?" Dean asked.

"The seal is beneath the counter," Ian replied, laying a long-fingered hand on the bar, tone as level as Castiel's, though he moved with a more pronounced, child-like kind of grace belying the bulk of the blond-linebacker-vessel he was wearing.

"The breaking ritual must be performed here," Ian went on, "The demons must be prevented from coming inside."

"What do we have to play with?" Dean asked, walking around the space. The bar was standard, if a little bit smaller than usual. There was the bartender's station that was also apparently some sort of an altar with a seal beneath it. There were bar stools around it, a back door leading up to a kitchen, a small storage room and the owner's living quarters behind it, and a few booths and tables in the rest of the space. There was a classic jukebox that functioned better than the single, unisex piss-poor bathroom. Dean realized with a grimace that, as the single human being there, he was also the only one who would probably be unfortunate enough to eventually need it, depending on how long they were holding the damn fort.

_Shit_.

"Not a lot," replied Christian, "Look around, this is it. What do you think?"

"I think we're dead," Dean said with a sour grin, "But no one likes a Debbie Downer, so gimme a second to think."

"We'll begin with the standard ward around the building," Castiel said.

"Dig a ditch," Dean suggested, "Maybe half a foot deep, paint the protective wards on the ditch, and then put the sand back over it to keep it from blowing away, at least for a little while."

"There's water supply in the establishment from a tank on the roof," Jude shared, "The pressure is poor and the quantity low and slow to fill, but we can bless whatever water is there, station some of us on the high ground, and use the water against any demon who might come near."

"We are also equipped with long-range salt-round rifles," Elizabeth said, "Well enough to keep fighting for hours. And salt lines at every entrance too, of course."

"We draw a Devil's Trap above the seal," Dean added, "You mentioned the bastards have a new trick that works on you guys but not on humans?"

"They've come up with their own Trap," Castiel answered, "Keeps us from escape. So what they do is they draw their Trap around wherever we draw our own. They wait until a more powerful demon comes along who can break whatever wards we have put up or until they find another way, and then they storm in, with us stuck inside at no chance of escape."

"The demons have also started making use of hostages," Elizabeth added, "Because of all our protective spells, demons cannot get through. What they do is take people from neighboring towns, hold their families hostage, and force them to break our seals or even attempt to kill us. Our hands have been forced in ways we have never imagined."

"Our side had killed humans?" Dean asked, aghast.

"We did not at the time understand the strategy," she replied, "I can promise you it is heavily regretted and lamented, but will likely happen again."

"All we can resort to is maximum tolerance before the use of deadly force," Castiel said, "We have been willing to destroy entire towns before, Dean, you know this. It is given that a few humans lost in our efforts to protect our seal is similarly terrible but acceptable. The consequences of failure are too great."

Dean rubbed his palms over his eyes, "Yeah, yeah. I know. Damn it. Fricking demons, man. They learn fast to fight dirty, don't they? You guys need new tricks, Cas."

The angel shrugged in acquiescence.

"We have also received word that two more seals have fallen in the last few hours," Jude said quietly, "Lilith and Alastair are yet to be located. And some unusual reports have been coming in from a town a few miles west of here. We can credibly expect an attack in the next hour, and with humans drafted amongst them." He looked at his small team grimly, and was met by equally determined stares.

"We'll be as ready as we can be," Christian said, tone low and cautious.

"Which isn't saying a lot," Dean said, closing his eyes and taking a deep, calming breath. His side was smarting again. "We gotta get to work."

" " "

_2001-2005_

" " "

_"Are you there yet?"_

_Sam rolls back his eyes, even as he knew that it was all a game anyway. Dean asks the same question 'til Sam's ears bleed (or he reaches Stanford, whichever one comes first), pretending like he had all the time in the world to pester his younger brother when in fact, they both knew he was sneaking out from their watchful father's eye any chance he got, or took advantage in any breath he could get while doing a job. Sam pretends the crazy calls annoy him, even as they both knew he desperately needed the distraction._

_"Just now, Dean," Sam sighed, "_God_. Let me settle down first, will you?"_

_"Just checking," came the prompt response, before Dean smartly hung up, and left Sam to his own devices._

_In his first few weeks away from Dean and their father, Dean would call him up at seemingly almost every available moment. Dean was indiscriminate; odd hours, quick calls that are abruptly and sporadically cut. Sam answered every single one of them, and every single time, his opening salvo would be the very embodiment of his fear._

_"Hey Dean, you all right? Is everything all right?"_

_"'Course I'm all right, I'm always all right," his older brother would snort, and then regale him with the Disney-version of a recent hunt, or talk about a girl he took to bed. Nothing important, really, and most certainly nothing that even vaguely hinted at the always-underlying 'I miss you,' or on the receiving end of that, 'I want to go home.'_

_Sam can't remember the first time he missed one of Dean's calls. Maybe he was in class, or maybe he was in the bathroom, or in the library. He just remembered looking at the call log, and wondering why he was suddenly not worried about Dean at all. He was suddenly not compelled to call back, not compelled to ask what Dean may have wanted or needed from him._

_Sam remembered, however, the first time he intentionally missed one of Dean's calls. He was in a bar surrounded by new friends and excellent conversation. The night was well-lit, breezy and young, the liquor was disarming, and he'd never felt so _new_ before. His cellphone was ringing, and suddenly he found the sound oppressive, the pitch too high, the sound profoundly irritating. It was the only link he had left with his old life._

_"Aren't you gonna get that?" someone asked him._

_It was Dean on the phone. He knew because he looked, though he didn't have to._

_"Nah," he said, "I'll let the machine get it."_

_There was a part of him that screamed to answer his brother's call. _What if Dean's hurt? What if he needs help?_ And the voice was not at all easy to bear. But there too was another part of him that reasoned very fairly too... the part that said, rather calmly, that if Sam ever noticed, Dean never called on him for help or need. It was not in Dean's big-brother make to call Sam if he was hurt or ill; Dean had their father or Bobby or any of their hunter-allies to do that to. Anytime and everytime Dean would call Sam, it was to check on _him_, to see if _he_ was okay, to see what _he_ was up to. _

_Sam realized that was the reason why his worry over missing Dean's calls have come and gone. Dean won't call him for help, Dean would call someone else. Dean was fine. Sam can live out his life now, without the painful ties of the past._

_It was disturbingly easy to become strangers after that. Dean figured out that his brother wasn't answering and had decreased his calls from indiscriminate to once-in-awhile. Sam would take them, _once in awhile_. Quick, casual checks. The quicker the better as a matter of fact, as if to guarantee that painful words would not bleed out, and make the both of them lose their respective nerves to stay wherever the hell they each were. The brothers spent shorter and shorter time on the phone together, and less and less times._

_Still..._

_The voice is always there, the one that wonders if he is needed, the one that wonders if Dean wants his help. Years later, when Dean appeared by Sam's door looking world-beat and determined and asking for his help to look for their father, it was that voice that won out over the rest._

" " "

2009

" " "

The pilot asked them to put on their seatbelts, and the private plane shifted in movement shortly thereafter.

"What's going on?" Sam asked one of the hunters he was traveling with, who was walking toward his seat.

"Change in plans," the man said, "I heard something about us turning around or something."

Sam glanced worriedly at Ruby, who was sitting beside him.

"Sam," she said, nodding at one of the angels who were motioning for Sam to join them up in the cockpit.

"I'm gonna find out," he said, rising from his seat, and walking carefully toward them. "What's up?"

"We're running a patch from New York," the co-pilot said, handing Sam a headset, "It's Bobby Singer."

Sam stared at him for a long, terrifying moment. He felt literally frozen; cold and paralyzed. There was something to be said about getting phone calls after just-parting with your brother, _oh yes_. It's been awhile since he's been scared of getting phone calls like this, fearing for his brother's well-being, but it was all-too-familiar and inescapably unwelcome.

_Take the damn thing_, his mind was going, but his hands were shaky and stiff, just... incapable of wanting to hear what was supposed to be said.

"Sam!" the co-pilot barked at him, breaking the spell.

"Yeah," he said, snatching the headset and putting it over his head, blinking, breathing, just trying to get his damn heart to calm down, "Bobby?"

"Sam," Bobby greeted, "It's Dean--"

"_God_, no--!"

"No, you idjit," Bobby snapped, "I got him on the line for you."

Sam closed his eyes and exhaled, "Geez, you're gonna give me a--"

"Sammy, are you there yet?"

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed, relieved at hearing his brother's humorous opener.

"Watch the volume!" came the radio-scratchy reply, "Phone patch in a private jet, huh? And they thought the Winchesters would never amount to anything."

Sam chuckled nervously, relief making him a little giddy, so giddy that it took him a long moment to realize that while Dean was alive, a _phone patch in a private jet_ must have meant the message wasn't going to be just simple, checking-in phone call. It also took him a beat to catch the heavy weariness, the hoarseness in his brother's voice, and the muted sounds of chaos on his brother's background.

"Dean?" Sam asked.

"We're not doing so well," Dean said breathlessly, "So I guess I was just calling to check if your day is going any better."

Sam rubbed at his face wearily, "Dean, Jesus..."

"Make sure those angels aren't listening in on you, dude," Dean said, coughing, "You know they don't like that, using the name in vain and all. So, listen. Castiel thought of this really awesome strategy-- ow! I mean, _we_. _We_ thought of this really awesome strategy."

"Dean, what...?"

"Basing on the theory that all this shit can end or at least be derailed if we get to Alastair and Lilith," Dean replied, "We've thought of a way to find them."

"How?" Sam asked, suspiciously.

"Um," Dean hesitated, "Gimme a sec."

Sam listened some sort of commotion from the other end of the line, heard his brother mutter a curse before turning back to him.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, I'm back," Dean said, apparently deciding on the just-pull-on-the-band-aid tactic of blurting everything out as quickly as possible, "We're gonna give up this seal, it's going down anyway. I'm staying behind to get caught. The demons will take me to Lilith and Alastair, and then you guys can track me by the GPS chip from m'phone. When you find me, you'll find the two pricks, and then you and the angels do your thing and it's Miller time."

Sam's air _got. cut. off_. Just... vanished, in a whoosh that was torn from his lungs, deflating him. It was like the water being sucked from the shores, feeding a tsunami just before just before it _crashed_ on the world.

"That's stupid!" Sam exclaimed, making the radio whine in his ears from the frequency and the volume of his shout.

"What are the chances that Alastair and Lilith will be there, huh?" Sam snapped, rapid-fire, words like a hail of bullets, "Or that you'd be kept alive long enough to be brought to them? They are gonna _slaughter_ you, Dean. We'd have just lost a seal and you and all for nothing--"

"No, no," Dean said quickly, "They'll keep me alive, I know it. Lilith and Alastair wanna kill me slow, for one. And two... I'm the only thing they'd have to get to you, and you're the only thing they have to fear. I'll tell these demons who I am, Sammy. They'll take me to them, and the demons will keep me alive long enough for you to find me, and then you can nail those sons of bitches. You guys will find me, I know it."

"No," Sam said, with finality, "No, Dean. _No_."

"I ran it by the brains of this operation and it makes sense to them," Dean said, "As long as I have the phone on me, you can track me down. Demons don't go around patting down people, man, they're not big on disarmament; like the angels, they think our weapons are shit, you know, non-threatening. Lilith and Alastair are using supernatural mojo to cover up their tracks, that's why we can't find them. It's time to play by different rules, new tricks, right? The way I see it, the angels and the demons are on earth, and we've got toys like this that maybe they haven't thought of. Supernatural mojo is their turf. Material shit and dirty tricks? Human turf. _ Our_ turf. I kept thinking, when both heaven and hell were on our asses before? The only way they found us was when we revealed our location and/or burned off our protective mojo. But my damn cell was on and we were calling up people, and all anyone had to do was activate my GPS and get a location. This can work, Sammy."

"It's a shit plan!"

"It's the _only _plan," Dean said emphatically.

"No," Sam said, shakily, "_No_. There's gotta be another way. _No_."

"We gotta give this a shot," Dean said, quietly, "We got nothing else. They'll keep me alive, man, I know it."

"Dean..." Sam said, tears absently building up in his eyes, now. "No. There's gotta be another way. You can't... _I_ can't..."

"We got nothing else, bro," Dean said, quietly, "I hate doing this to you, I do. But we got nothing else. So let's just do this, and move on step by step from there, all right? We'll let this seal fall. I'll do the easy part and sit pretty and get caught. And then you do the hard part and find me, okay? I can take whatever they shell out, man. I can take it. I can take it and I can wait for you, I promise. Just come get me."

"Dean, no..." Sam said, crying openly now, feeling as if he was all alone in the world.

"We'll go step by step, Sammy," Dean said, voice shaking now too, "It'll be okay. I'll wait for you, just promise you'll come get me."

"I'll find you," Sam vowed, "Promise me you'll wait, and I'll find you."

"You got it, Sammy," Dean said, laughing nervously, "See? Step by step. Easy."

"Wait for me," Sam said again, "Okay, you have to--"

The line got cut.

"Dean!"

The co-pilot attempted to raise New York back, but the signal was out.

"I'm sorry, Sam," the man said, "Some interference here."

Sam tore at the headphones and let them hang from his hands, and he bowed his head low and fucking _cried_. He had a right to, didn't he? Sam let it out in an indulgent jag. He didn't care who saw or heard. Because he was allowed one, shit-jag. _One_. And then it was time to work.

_I'll find you._

_Promise me you'll wait._

_And I'll find you_.

He took a deep breath and put himself together. He straightened his posture, and swiped at his eyes. He looked like shit, but then again he was supposed to. He handed the headphones to the co-pilot numbly, and everyone was staring at him with a pity that he truly despised.

"Sam?" the man asked him, carefully.

"Just get us back," he said, rising to his feet, tall and large and strong.

He had a promise to keep, after all.

" " "

"You need to change," Castiel said to the angel beside him, Christian. The two of them stood by the stairwell that led up to the helipad on the Manhattan building, awaiting the return of Samuel Winchester. The flapping sound of the approaching helicopter could be heard in the near distance.

"There is no time--"

"You are covered in his brother's blood," Castiel said, quietly insistent, "Make time."

Christian shook his head, but did as he was bid. Feeling burdened, shoulders low, Castiel trudged up the stairs, thinking about the last time he had stood here with Sam.

_"He's all I have..." Sam breathed, "And that doesn't mean anything else to anybody, but... but you have to know that. I don't know God but... but if anyone cares about things like that, it's gotta be Him, right? And you work for Him, so you gotta... gotta just... do your best."_

He didn't know how he would be met in this reunion, how Sam would receive him after he had left Dean in the middle-of-nowhere, already-injured to begin with, and now at the mercy of a horde of demons.

_You gotta try your best_...

He closed his eyes, sending his Father a prayer, the prayer asking for '_serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can. The wisdom to know the difference_...'

" " "

_The demons closed in at nightfall._

_The defense of their seal had gone from bad to worse quickly._

_The angels and Dean stood on the roof of the building, surveying the scene below._

_The sun was setting in the mountains in the west, giving the vastness beneath their feet a warm glow. The wind was picking up, and the sands were shifting around them. The evening winds whipped at their hair and their coats, making them billow majestically. The trees in the near distance were practically bowing with their force._

_The first sign of their foes were specks of black shadows creeping toward the place they have sworn to defend. Cars kicking up smoke, bearing demons and the humans they were using, speeding toward where they were standing._

_Dean took a deep breath, and felt the angels with him take the same, collective intake of grim determination. _

_The demons surrounded them, bound from coming any closer by the wards they had put up in the sand around the building. But the dust danced with the winds, and they all knew it would only be a matter of time before their enemies can storm inside._

_Below, the demons were leering up at them in morbid wait. They drew out their own Trap, making sure that once sealed, the Angels inside would stay inside._

_"Playing for keeps, are they?" Dean murmured._

_But it hadn't been the dirtiest trick of them all. They started drawing out their human hostages, demanding the surrender of the seal in exchange for their lives._

_They broke the necks of two children even before Dean or the angels could get any word out, and even then the night was just beginning._

_Old or young, bodies with broken necks folded in that cold, matter-of-fact manner. Boneless, down to the unforgiving ground--_

_"Son-of-a-bitch," he heard Dean mutter beside him, drawing out a rifle and aiming._

_Castiel put a calming hand on his braced arm. "There is nothing we can do for any of them anymore, Dean. Save the salt rounds, for when the demons make their move to come in."_

_"I can't just watch," Dean said, lips tight, "I can't just--"_

" " "

Castiel looked up at the landing aircraft.

Sam hopped off, trailed by that demon-woman who always shadowed him. He looked impossibly larger, stalking toward Castiel.

Unquestionably, he understood Dean more than he understood Dean's brother. This meant that he had always seen Sam in Dean's light: the younger brother who was to be protected, whom Dean had the capacity to stop, to guide, to watch over. Seeing Sam from Dean's eyes made it hard to remember sometimes why the man had to be stopped in the first place. The danger was hard to reconcile, a lot of the time.

Not so much this night, with Sam's eyes hallowed and darkened, and his strides large, just eating up the spaces.

"Where is he and what the hell happened?" Sam asked.

To be continued...


	3. Wait

Author:Mirrordance

Title: **Steps Behind**

Summary:56 seals down, 10 left to open. It's 2009, and Lucifer's standing on the welcome mat. At the eve of the final battle in a losing war, the Winchesters make their last goodbyes, and at this end of days, Dean is finally learning to let Sam go.

**Author's Note**:

**Thanks to all who read and especially all who reviewed the previous chapter**! More detailed responses will be given when I post my standard Afterword with the last chapter of _Steps Behind_, which should be coming out in a week or a bit over. Those who've read my work before know that when I start writing the Afterword, it usually means I'm just about done with the story so that's the current status of _Steps Behind_. I hope you guys won't have to wait too long for that one, especially since I'm ready and eager to get to my new projects too (one of which is actually referred to in this chapter, but I'll get to that later :)).

**On another note, this chapter will contain some pretty graphic violence**. If this in any way offends you, I suggest you turn back now, as it won't let up until the fic is ended. If you've read chapters 1-2, though, I'm sure you've come to expect the torture aspect of the coming scenes. Still, I felt it was important to give out one more warning before pushing forward.

Please feel free to send me c&c's, as they are always very helpful. I hope you enjoy this chapter and stick with me 'til the fic crawls toward its tragic promise. I only hope I do it fairly and do these brilliant characters justice. The show is so amazing, and it's never lost on me how lucky we are to have it, the opportunity to play around with it in this realm, and to have the support of each other as fans to expand the storylines. The greatness of the show is particularly emphasized to me after the loss of Kim Manners. Even if I don't know him personally, everyone who has ever appreciated his work has surely lost a little something when someone whose shared their beautiful vision of the world passes on.

Anyway, without further ado, Chapter 3 of _Steps Behind_:

" " "

_**3: Wait**_

" " "

2009

" " "

Sam's lethal expression softened only when the Castiel drew out Dean's amulet, and wordlessly handed it to him. Sam took it reverently, unknowingly echoing the sacred hold Castiel had cradled it in, when Dean first handed it to him to give to Sam hours ago.

Sam looked at Castiel, eyes searching now, searching for answers Castiel cannot give. Answers God himself has never given before.

_Why him? Why our family? Why...?_

"I do not know," Castiel murmured, to all that and more. Whatever the question was. Castiel realized he knew very little of very little things. Sam pressed his lips to a tight line.

"We believe he's still alive," Castiel said, "And they have him, just as we intended."

"Then we got work to do," Sam said softly. He tore his gaze from the angel, and looked up at the arrival of a few of their other allies, all of them looking at him grimly. His face hardened and closed again, defying their sympathy. He slipped Dean's amulet over his head, and it vanished in the folds of his clothes.

"Walk with me," Sam told the angel, "Tell me what happened, and what we have to do now."

" " "

_Earlier_

" " "

_"The last thing they will know of their god," the demon said, voice a slither and a hiss, "Is that they hadn't been important enough to be saved."_

_The demon was holding a young woman in her late-twenties, wide-eyed, terrified, half-out-of-her-mind. _

_"Please," she begged up at Dean and the angels, "Just give them what they want."_

_"Tell them," the demon told her, "Tell them, Dolores. Do you believe in God?" She was quivering, seemingly unable to speak. He shook her insistently, "Tell them, Dolores. Do you believe in God?"_

_She shuddered in a sob, "Yes."_

_"Say it," the demon ordered, shaking her again._

_"Yes!" she cried, "I believe in God."_

_"Do you love God?" the demon taunted._

_"Stop it!" Dean exclaimed, his own body trembling. _

_"Do you think God loves you?" the demon went on._

_Dean's hands trembled and tightened against the rifle he had not yet fired, and his heart pounded in his ears, as he watched the exchange from where he stood on the roof with Castiel and the other angels._

_"All they do is watch," the demon taunted her, tilted her head up to look at them, "All god does is watch. Because god knows you're suffering, I can promise you that. He knows. But he'll let you. He'll let you suffer."_

_"Please," she begged up at them again, met Dean's eyes, "Just give them what they want."_

_Dean wanted to turn away. _God_, he wanted to turn away. He wanted to shoot the fucker in the eye, the demon taunting her. But Castiel and the others had been right. Strategically, these people have been lost since they were picked up. If they bargained and saved them, the world would end and they would be lost anyway. Even if he was a crack-shot and spare her the words of this one demon, relief would be fleeting, as there were many other demons who could take that one's place. There was no way to spare her the pain, no way at all. The most they could do was hold to their seal and save their salt rounds. The most he could do _for her_, particularly, was to look her in the eye and own up to his decision, even if it meant her death._

_"I'm sorry," he told her._

_Her eyes looked anguished and broken and angry and afraid, and the demon asked her again, if she thought god loved her._

_"Dolores, listen to me," Dean called out to her, "We're not the bad guys here, all right? Look at us. Look at _them_."_

_The demon snorted at him, but Dean went on._

_"You can't understand this now," he said, "And you probably got a right to be angry. I can't tell you what to believe. But what's paid in a trade represents the other thing's worth, right? You have to believe that there are some things worth your life."_

_"Worth more than your life," the demon taunted, "More important than your stupid little life..."_

_"You believe in God right?" Dean asked, "This is where that comes in, when you can't understand it anymore. You have to believe you're worth a lot, and what's happening is worth you."_

_She was crying, looking terrified and inconsolable._

_"You have to believe you're worth it," Dean said._

_"Worth more than your life," the demon went on as she cried, "More important than your stupid little life, a life not worth saving."_

_"You have to believe--" Dean was cut off, his body jerking reaction when the demon broke her neck. She died holding Dean's gaze. _

_The demon looked up at him with a smirk._

_"I know your face, Dean Winchester," the demon said up to him, "I have not just heard of you, but I have suffered at your hands before, as many others have. I know what you _really_ are. What are you doing up there, mouthing lies? Staining the armies of God by your vileness? You should be down here in the dust, amongst us. Down amongst us in the dust, you with your bloodied, sinful, unworthy hands."_

_Castiel's hand rested on his shaking shoulder._

_"You belong with us," the demon said_.

" " "

_They all knew the precise moment when the wards they had drawn on the sand had broken. The air felt like it split, and cackled, as if something had snapped and charged the air._

_The demons roared in their delight and pushed aside their trembling human hostages as they ravaged their way toward the small building. The humans cowered together in the periphery of the battle, for-now forgotten and at the same time incapable of escape._

_The defenses that Dean and the angels had put up were layered. The first line of defense was the ward that surrounded the building at a wide radius, drawn on sand and now broken by the winds. The next would be the salt-lines on all points of entry from inside the building. The demons pounded and snarled and clawed, wanting inside, knowing their prize was near. From the roof, the angels and Dean poured on the low-pressure and all-too-little holy water over their heads._

_They screamed, they shook, they backed off, and they came running right on back._

_The sound of an exorcism pierced the air, Jude chanting Latin in a mad rush. But the space was too large, and the demons would just back away from the range of hearing to break the spell, and then come on back._

_Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, push and pull back, _push, push, push_... the demons pounded on the doors and the rickety walls, relentless. The salt lines inside had to be shaking, and could soon be shaken free._

_"Downstairs!" Castiel screamed over the din of the wind and the cries of the battle and the droning exorcism, "The salt lines!"_

_"Got it!" Dean said, running down the spiral steps into the bar, trailed by Elizabeth and Christian. Ian, Jude and Castiel stayed on the roof, holding the high ground._

_They each grabbed a sack of salt and surveyed the area, checking to see if anything has been dislodged and hurriedly replacing them. The doors and the walls were shaking, and faces with blackened eyes peered at them from the glass windows._

_"How many, you think?" Elizabeth asked, breathlessly._

_"Forty demons, easy," Dean said, putting a hand to his sore ribs, "We gotta hole up until they decide to quit."_

_"Or some other seals from somewhere else fall and they no longer have need of ours," Christian said._

_Their heads shot up to the sound of Castiel going down the spiral steps. "The water supply has been cut."_

_"Time for the rifles?" Dean asked._

_"Not just yet," Castiel said, "When they get inside, we must save the rounds until--"_

_A window broke, and the sound of a shotgun could be heard ringing. Dean's eyes widened to the smoking hole on Christian's shirt, right over the vessel's heart._

_The salt lines and the wards kept the demons out, but bullets they may wish to use, _not so much_. The demons learned human tricks and fighting dirty fast, he had said, right? He said that? _

_The next bullet that tore into the room met with his left shoulder._

_Dean cried out in pained surprise just as he felt the weight of Castiel pushing him to the ground and ordering, "Down!"_

_The glass burst all around them in a shower of bullets as everyone pressed against the floor._

_The bullets wouldn't harm the angels for sure, but it certainly made their defense of their post all the harder, and of course they could harm Dean, the sole human in their fold. Dean felt Castiel's arm over his head, keeping him covered and low, as he caught his breath at the fire on his shoulder._

_"Tables," Dean gasped, "Against the windows..."_

_He felt Castiel nod against him, and the angel crawled to one of the bases of the heavy tables surrounding the bar and then used his shoulder to hoist it up against the windows. Elizabeth and Christian caught on quick and did the same with the others, bracing seats and poles and anything else they can find against them._

_Jude and Ian came pounding into the room from the roof, eyes making a quick check of everyone as the gunfire sputtered to a halt. The walls and doors were still shaking from the pounding of the demons, but they had a respite. _Of sorts_. Their eyes settled on Dean, who was grunting and attempting to push himself up off the bloodied, glass-encrusted ground._

_Christian walked over and helped him sit, but otherwise kept him where he was. Dean closed his eyes and hung his head low, clutching at his arm as he tried to control his breathing. Christian looked up at Castiel, eyes cloudy._

_"This cannot go on for very much longer," he said, quietly._

_We_ cannot go on much longer...

_"I know," Castiel admitted._

_"You guys," Dean said with a sick smile, finally looking up as he tried to right his vision of the world, "You guys really need new tricks."_

" " "

_Dean sat, swaying from pain and blood-loss on the bar atop the seal intentionally irreverently, with a little bit of healthy spite. Just because it was the reason his life was so presently shitty. No one minded, as long as he left all that regrettable alcohol alone._

_Christian had bound his shoulder, stemming the blood if not the pain and grimacing in sympathy and the inability to lend any true comfort._

_Dean wished it was Sam with him here instead._

_Well, not _here_, precisely, because _here was shit_. But just... with him. Because an idea came to him while he was absently swimming on an extra dosage of painkillers made justifiable by his freshly wounded shoulder, and he was reminded of that phrase, about an idle mind being the devil's playground or something. Sam would find it funny. The angels... _not so much_, probably._

_"Cas!" he called out, randomly. His voice was grave, so he cleared his throat and called out louder. He didn't know where the accountant was, but he almost always seemed to be somewhere nearby._

_"There is really no need for shouting," Elizabeth admonished him, "The space is quite small and your voice... not quite... soothing."_

_"My voice?" Dean scoffed, "My voice doesn't shatter windows and break mirrors, lady. Where is he?"_

_"Dean?" Castiel inquired, coming from the back room._

_"Where've you been?"_

_Castiel handed him a glass of water. The sight almost made Dean laugh and cry. The walls and windows and doors were shaking around them. Forty demons were outside their door. The salt lines were quivering. The moans and screams and screeches outside were almost overwhelming, and the sporadic sound of gunfire could still make him jump. The simple sight of a glass of water looked like a still portrait of a life long-lost._

_"Thank you," he said, accepting with his good hand, dumbly. He blinked, took the cursory sip._

_"What do you have in mind?" Castiel asked._

_"I told you you guys needed new tricks," Dean said, "Sammy's gonna kill me."_

_"Dean, what?" Elizabeth pressed._

_"This seal's pretty much a giveaway, right?" Dean asked, "And I'm not Debbie Down-ing here, I'm just saying pure, sick, sad fact? I think I have a better idea. I don't know if anyone's thought about this already, and I don't know if it's gonna work. But hear me out, okay? Ever heard of a mule?"_

_"I've heard of mules," Ian said, earnest baby blues sparkling, and Dean blinked at him for a long moment, knowing that while this angel was a scary shit out in a field of battle, the two of them were categorically in different pages and he was in no mood to discuss mammals right now._

_"Never mind," Dean cleared his throat, "You still can't find Lilith and Alastair, but if we find the two pricks, we can nip this damn plan in the bud, right? I know how we can find them."_

_"How?" Elizabeth asked, looking more than a little bit skeptical._

_Dean just quirked an eyebrow at her. "What, you got a monopoly on the strategy here? Tell you what. I don't muck around in your god-light-power-mojo sandbox, that's your turf. But if you wanna know about earth-stuff and dirty fighting using material things? You turn to us, right? Power stuff, your turf. Material stuff, mine. If you didn't need humans, this thing would have been over before any one of us mud-monkeys knew any better. So you wanna gimme a little more _faith _here?"_

_Castiel's lips were tight in that restrained humor of his again. Give him two more years walking this Earth and there might actually be some hope for him, Dean thought inanely._

_"You all know by now that this is a cellphone," Dean said, drawing out his from his pocket, "Inside is a chip that allows it to be traced by GPS. Anywhere this chip is, GPS can track it. And before you fricking say anything about how ridiculous it sounds to track the cellphone of a fricking demon, yeah, I know they don't usually carry."_

_"Then what is the point of this?" Jude pressed._

_"I was talking about mules, right?" Dean said, "Mules put drugs inside condoms, and then swallow the condoms to get the drugs through border patrols and traffic them across countries for selling. So, on a similar principle, what I'm suggesting is we get a warm body to carry around a GPS chip and let him get picked up by Lilith or Alastair, and then you can track down where these bastards are."_

_"But demons send off energy," Christian said, thoughtfully, "Is that not disruptive to this 'tracking?'"_

_"From my experience," said Dean, "Even demons have had no problem using cellphones, so if there's any electrical disruption it can't be that bad. Now would they block off signals intentionally is the next question and frankly, I don't think they would."_

_He looked at Castiel meaningfully, "I've been giving you Earth-advice and I think I forgot to give you one of the soundest ones: watch '_Independence Day_,' dude. The ultra-modern aliens could disrupt radio signals, so the humans hit it old school and used Morse code instead. This is kinda like that. The demons are all pent up on magic/supernatural mumbo-jumbo, I'm pretty sure blocking out a cellphone signal or confiscating one from a prisoner is low on their priority list. And like I said, they've used cellphones before, so I'm sure these babies can work even when the demons are around. I think this'll work. But I don't know, and that's why I had to float it by you. I don't even know if anyone's given it a shot before. _

_"I mean," Dean added, "I know Lilith and Alastair are using supernatural mojo to cover up their tracks for sure, right, that's why you can't find them? Maybe it's time to play by different rules, man. You're on earth, and we've got toys like this that we can use that maybe they haven't thought of."_

_"You said, 'warm body,'" Elizabeth murmured, "Hand them a prisoner?"_

_"More like stage a defeat and leave someone behind," Dean said, "Give them a good show, nothing too suspicious. You got a few seals left, right? Let's give ours up, consider it an investment or something. Leave a guy behind in the heat of the battle, assume he'd be captured by or be taken to Lilith and Alastair, and then track him down."_

_"But we doom this person," Ian pointed out, "And the chances that Lilith or Alastair will be on this contingent about to attack us, or that this person we leave behind should be brought before them, is poor at best."_

_"Some guys have better chances at being kept alive and brought before those two bastards than others, you know," Dean said, looking up at Castiel, whose stricken look already revealed that the angel had just realized why Dean began sharing this plan with the statement '_Sammy's gonna kill me_.'_

_"You are offering yourself," Castiel said, carefully._

_"There are very few people on that shitlist," Dean said, "Sam's on top, but he ain't here. I'm on that list too 'cos Lilith's pissed I got snaked out of our bargain, and Alastair wants to have a reunion. Most of all, I'm on that list 'cos if the only thing they have left to fear is Sam, well... I'm the only thing Sam's afraid for."_

_"You must not offer this lightly," Castiel told him, quietly, and intently, making Dean feel as if there was, for a moment, no one in the room but the two of them, "'_Being kept alive_' and brought before them deserves more definition, Dean. I can promise you that you will suffer in their hands."_

_"You think I don't know that?" Dean snapped, "But you know how this fucking inconvenient conscience works, man. You work for the Guy who invented it. If you think of a solution, you gotta get it out there, or you carry it in you forever. I don't wanna get cut and I don't wanna die. But... well, I thought about it already, and the moment I did, I can't just keep it to myself. Now, we got a little bit of time before the demons storm in here. If you wanna run it by the smarter people up at the HQ to see if it makes sense, I suggest you do that right now." He offered his cellphone to Castiel._

_Castiel glanced at it, and then handed it over to Elizabeth and gave her a small nod to do as Dean had requested. She walked off to do as was bid, and the three other angels with them shuffled away to their posts to give Dean and the angel some time to discuss the plan further._

_"Dean," Castiel said, "I find the idea is sound."_

_"Yeah," Dean said wryly, "I'm still kinda hoping it's not but... whatever."_

_Castiel looked at him wistfully. "I cannot tell you not to do as your conscience demands, Dean. But if you are doing this out of the misplaced notion that you are unworthy of forgiveness, and redemption is something you must do all by yourself, or that you deserve to be tortured and sacrificed because of your past sins... it is similarly abhorrent to me, because it is an underestimation of the magnitude of God's love and generosity."_

_"What are you saying?"_

_"Are you doing this because you want to be punished for your sins?" Castiel asked, "Or to save yourself from their consequences?"_

_Dean's brows furrowed, "Cas, you know I'm not one of those cerebral guys, all right? I'm not saying I don't wanna be saved or forgiven. If someone's giving out candy, I'm all up for it. But I honestly didn't think about that redemption, forgiveness stuff. This is just what needs to be done. Right or wrong, that's it. Nothing so dramatic, geez."_

_Castiel stared at him for a long, thoughtful moment._

_"What?"_

_"Nothing..."_

_"No, what?"_

_"I spoke to Samuel before he left," Castiel said, "I told him something along the lines of things just coming down to doing what is right. The idea of being preached upon... especially by what I taught and especially by you instead is still new to me."_

_Dean smirked at him._

_"We have some time as the defenses hold," Castiel murmured, changing the topic, "Which gives us a chance not only to confirm the logic of this tactic, but for you to call your brother and let him know of your plan, and... any other thing you might wish to say."_

_"Let me tell you something," Dean said, mildly amused, "You think volunteering for this is suicidal? Calling Sam and telling him, that's suicidal. To tell you the truth, I'd rather not. I mean," he chuckled, self-deprecating, "If he starts bawling – _and he will_ – I might lose my nerve."_

_"You mean to keep this plan from Sam?" Castiel inquired._

_"I've thought about it," Dean said, shrugging, "But I can't do that anymore, Cas. We're a long way past that, maybe we both know better now. It'll just piss him off and hurt him more if I kept this from him. Sammy's got every right to know."_

_"And what will he do then?"_

_"Scream at me," Dean chuckled, "Toss in a few threats, cry, the works, all the usual stuff. But that won't matter. He'll do the right thing, no matter what. I know that."_

_"Will he be able to function?" Castiel asked._

_"Oh yeah," Dean said vehemently, "Nothing works better on that kid than if I phrased something like a job. As long as I make it out like a task or a mission he'll be able to do what he needs to do. He's uh... he's kinda like our dad like that. Proactive, you know. I tell him goodbye and he'll have my ass. I tell him to fight and find me, and no one's gonna be better, _no one_. But you know... there's two more things left we have to worry about?"_

_"What's that?"_

_"How to get you guys outta here," Dean said, "They have that Angel-Trap-thing outside. You can't get out in your magical teleporting holy light. How does anyone break that ward?"_

_"As long as they can get you," Castiel said, "And the others on our side can find Lilith and Alastair through you, then it doesn't matter to me what happens to the rest of us."_

_"They'll kill you," Dean pointed out._

_"It doesn't matter," Castiel said again, "When I was sent here, I knew it was likely. I am at peace with that."_

_"The way I see it," Dean said, "If I'm gonna risk my life for this, we gotta have the best possible people going after Lilith and Alastair when we finally do know where they are. That means getting you and your happy crew out of here, so help me out. Does it work like a Devil's Trap? If there's a crack on it, can you just fly on out of here in your magical freaky light?"_

_"Yes," Castiel replied, "But therein lies the problem. We are sequestered in here, the trap is outside, and an angel cannot break it. Only the demons or you can."_

_"Hm," Dean said, thoughtfully._

_"You made mention of two worries?" Castiel asked, "Perhaps we can get further with the other."_

_"The hostages are still out there," Dean said, "They're alive, and the demons are ignoring them for now, but they can't leave. No car, nowhere to run in this barren shit. There's gotta be a way to get you angels out and get the people out. There's gotta be a way."_

_Elizabeth returned to them then, handing the phone out to Dean. "I have Bobby Singer in New York. He has a dirty mouth. He wants to scream at you, and he's threatening to call your brother."_

_Dean grinned at Castiel slyly, "Think about it. I gotta handle this."_

" " "

_After he ended his call to Bobby Singer in New York and his brother who was en route to England, Dean checked the power on his phone, and was satisfied it would hold for a good, long while. He was happy he kept to the small, basic ones instead of the larger, complicated multi-function pieces Sam tended to like. He put it on silent, and even turned off the vibrate function. Getting a call while being held captive by a demon would _so suck_, after all._

_"Now, where to hide you..." he murmured. _

_Demons were not very precise about disarmament; like the angels, they generally treated material weapons as non-threatening. Dean, therefore, didn't expect to be patted down, but he wanted to increase the chances of being able to hang onto the phone too._

_Coat pocket was too risky; first things to go in a decent torture he had grown to expect were the outer-most, top clothes, _hello_! Jeans pockets were too bulky and obvious. He had a holster holding a knife on his shin, so that was the only logical way to go. He lifted up his pant leg, got rid of the knife, made slight adjustments, and then put the phone in snugly in its place._

_He smirked at the sight. It was like an ankle bracelet, like he was on house arrest or something. _Maybe in a different life_, he thought, chuckling in half-hysteria._

_He covered up, and then stood up and jumped around, did some stretches, hoping the unfamiliar weight wouldn't dampen his flexibility._

_He flipped off the cap of his painkillers and swallowed two. When he gets captured, he won't be getting anything for awhile, after all._

_Satisfied, he picked up the knife he had taken from his holster and flipped it expertly in his hands as he walked to the kitchen of the bar and up the small spiral stairs that led up to the roof. All the angels were already there, crouched low against the ground to avoid being seen by the demons still pounding on the doors and walls below._

_"Are you ready?" Castiel asked him._

_"As ever," Dean breathed._

_"'The Star,'" Castiel said, out of the blue, "It was Sam, who told me about it. I understand what you said; what's paid in a trade represents the other thing's worth. You are worth saving and you are worth the world, Dean. That is the only reason you would be left here in an effort to save it."_

_"I'm the one who thought about it," Dean smirked at him disarmingly, "No need to preach to the choir."_

_Castiel smiled back; sly and dry and appreciative. _Funny...

_"Now!" Castiel commanded._

_As they had planned, Ian pulled on a rope from where he was crouched on the roof. The rope connected to the main door of the bar, set up to pull it open, break the salt lines, let the demons in. They screeched in happy surprise. They would wonder about the wisdom of it later, but the reaction was hungry, instinctive, cannibalistic. They stormed the bar before they thought twice about why the angels would suddenly pull the doors open._

_As the demons ran inside, Ian hopped off the roof and to the ground below. The surge was confusing and many of the demons pushing their way into the bar didn't even notice him. Some of the stragglers outside were surprised by the landing of the angel, however, and were shot at with salt rounds by the other angels on the roof to cover Ian._

_Castiel jumped off too, and motioned for Dean to follow. A single-story jump was not usually a big deal for the hardy hunter, but a bullet in the shoulder and still-healing internal injuries was nothing to take lightly either. He landed heavily, huffing as Castiel caught him and softened his fall._

_"I'm good," Dean grunted, vision dancing as he absently clutched at the angel's clothes._

_"Go!" Ian yelled to them, covering their backs as more demons got alerted to their landing from the roof. Ian fired with his rifle, and also used it for close-contact combat. _

_Castiel held Dean by the arm, and started running for their parked hybrid rental, a few paces from the entrance. If Dean wasn't so dizzy, he'd have found the distance-unlock funny. The angel literally raised up his key chain and pressed on the button unlocking the car doors. The Impala wouldn't get hurt by an upgrade like that..._

_Angel and man jumped into the driver and passenger sides respectively and slammed the doors closed. Castiel gunned the engine, and Dean watched from the windows as the demons left outside began to converge on Ian._

_"Go, go, go!" Dean cried._

_Hybrid rentals weren't supposed to be great for crazy driving, but crazy drivers got their way most of the time, and Castiel high-tailed it right to the very age of the Angel-Trap, turning the car to a mind-blowingly beautiful almost-90-degree stop-turn that got Dean breathless and pressed against the dashboard._

_Dean caught his breath, and then pushed himself up as he scrambled out of the car. He saw marks on the ground that must have been what the demons had written out to keep the angels from being able to escape the place._

_He broke the line with a spiteful kick at the sand, and turned to Castiel. "Will that do it?"_

_Castiel took a deep breath and closed his eyes, almost as if he was already communicating success with his peers, "Yes."_

_"Good," Dean said, stepping back inside the car and nodding toward the huddled hostages a few feet away, "Now we go to them."_

_Castiel restarted the car, and stopped by the men, women and children holding each other and looking haunted and confused. He and Dean stepped off the car._

_"Go," Dean told them, nodding at the rental, "Get outta here."_

_"What?" one of the men asked, disbelieving._

_"Go," Dean said again, "We'll cover you, now go!"_

_The man blinked, and then ran for the driver's seat like there was no tomorrow. That was all that the rest of the people needed to see to follow, climbing one after the other, pressed tight in the car but ready and eager for escape. As the hybrid car sped away, Dean and Castiel slashed at the tires of the other cars parked around, the ones brought in by the demons, to keep them from following after the people._

_When they were done, they stood breathless and huffing, side by side, looking at the siege of the bar. The conflict looked so small from this distance. Everything looked small and insignificant from a distance..._

_The rest of the angels were on the ground with Ian now, and all of them were swarmed by demons. Clouds were gathering in the sky, and they knew that the proper rituals were already being performed in an attempt to open the seal._

_"You gotta get outta here," Dean said to Castiel, who opened his mouth to say something before Dean interrupted him, "And no changing your mind. I don't need you getting caught with me. I need you out there with Sam, trying to find me and trying to end this thing. So no, you're not staying."_

_Castiel nodded shortly, and pursed his lips in thought._

_"When I raised you," Castiel said after a moment, "It was the first time in a long time I found myself wondering why my Father should want anything done."_

_"And here I thought you liked me," Dean snorted._

_"I know His love and mercy is boundless," Castiel went on, "I understood that he could forgive you. But as to your place in His plans... it was my mistake, not to imagine the breadth of His vision."_

_"In short, you've finally figured out I'm useful," Dean said._

_"In the short time I've known you," Castiel said, "I thought I already understood that. You work hard, and you think of innovative solutions. I have never questioned your commitment. But today... today you make me feel quite small."_

_"Let's not talk about me like I'm dead already, geez," Dean said flippantly, though his resolve strengthened, his heart warmed and his face reddened. He smiled a little though, as he raised up his good arm and disentangled his amulet from his clothes and pulled it over his head._

_"You know where this one goes," he said, quietly, handing it to Castiel. The angel took the amulet with reverence, and placed it in the pocket over his heart._

_"You think this'll work?" Dean asked, brows furrowing._

_"My Father trusts you," Castiel replied, "That's why you are here."_

_"Do you trust me?" Dean asked, and this was, to him, two vastly different things._

_"I trust you," Castiel said._

_"So leave," Dean said simply._

_Castiel pressed a hand to Dean's shoulder. The left one, the one that was shot, the one where the angel's hand had rested when he pulled Dean from hell. It inexplicably eased the pain of the bullet wound, and reminded Dean of Sam's hand, back in New York, when his little brother couldn't quite let him go._

_It was that fucked-up time-loop again. Endings, beginnings, faces meshed and dates and times all messed up. It was how he had met Castiel, when the angel took him _from Perdition_. It was how he was saying goodbye. And if goodbyes can feel like meetings and meetings can feel like goodbyes... _maybe they'll see each other again after all_..._

_Castiel closed his eyes, tilted his head heavenward and vanished in pure white light. Dean squinted, and saw four more rays of light from the outside of the bar before them, signaling the retreat of the other angels._

_He opened his eyes, and set them determinedly against the building where his enemies were looking around, suddenly missing their prey. The angels were gone, their hostages have escaped, and Dean was the only one left. Their eyes found him, standing there alone. _

_They walked toward him, taking their sweet time because all that they could see was a man alone. But he was never just that. He was Dean Winchester: hunter, his father's son, a big brother, a soldier of God. Alone was all they could see. They didn't know he was much more that that._

_He was_ Waiting_._

_He was _Ready.

" " "

2009

" " "

They traveled in a loose convoy of mostly-discrete cars, so as to avoid detection. Sam drove the Impala with Bobby Singer seated beside him and Ruby and Castiel seated as politely far away from each other as possible in the roomy backseat. The other cars that trailed after them carried angels and hunters alike, and even without Sam's insistence, a full-team of paramedics and emergency field surgeons traveling with full equipment. It was a given that no one expected Dean Winchester to be walking around on his own steam after he was located.

"Well they're definitely moving," Bobby said, grunting as he shifted in his seat. He was manning a laptop, and the screen showed a bleep on a map that was supposed to symbolize Sam's brother. It was a small, red dot, blinking. How was that supposed to be Dean? So im-personified, so de-humanized?

"So how long do we wait?" Sam asked, "How do we know when we can move in?"

"We cannot storm in too quickly," Castiel said, "We move when the signal becomes stationary in its new location, and when we sense troop movements that indicate someone of importance is arriving there. We cannot storm in until there is a considerable change."

Sam ran a hand wearily over his face, "Which means we're leaving him in their hands longer. Damn it, Dean..."

"We have to be very careful," Ruby said quietly, "Keep our distance as much as possible. Lilith and Alastair tend to take over entire towns when they come to visit. We can reasonably expect demons even at the peripheries of where they're staying."

"Restraint and stealth is still the key," Castiel agreed, "And impeccable timing."

"Time," Sam murmured, glancing at the red dot again. He wondered how long Dean could hold out to wait for him.

" " "

"An integral element of torture," came the professorial, modulated voice, drifting almost-sweetly into his subconscious like tendrils of smoke creeping in from the unseen crevices of a locked room, "Is awareness and endurance. You see... there is no pain when the mind is lost or the body sinks into shock. And what point is torture without pain? There is a peak, my friend, that tiny summit where the pain is at the most it could be without the sufferer losing awareness. That is why there are intricate contraptions for torture, you see, and why it requires experts. It takes expertise to dance at this peak, extend the sufferer's stay here. Skills and patience that those who are lesser than I – these fools who have brought you before me – do not posses."

Dean's eyes snapped open as he gasped awake, back arching as he took in air. He coughed as he cleared his airway, felt like he was breathing through a damn cheese grater or something. He felt his body curve upwards and his chest heave, felt like he was being lifted up until his body met its mortal bounds, courtesy of the tight, rusted chains that held him down spread-eagled by wrists and ankles on hooks on the floor. He was clad in just his jeans and a thin undershirt; he'd been right when he thought he would be divested of his outer clothes, just as the reassuring weight on his shin showed he had also been right about the demon's lack of thoroughness in disarming their prey.

Alastair greeted him with a small smile. "I am nevertheless pleased to find you alive, Dean."

_The demons have gone _medieval_ on him, was his first inane thought at their descent. And there was no better word for it than that - _descent_. At the sight of their one remaining prey, the demons just flooded him, all clawed hands and teeth. There was no strategy to the violence, no thought. Just screeching rage. He raged right back. He kicked and clawed and screamed, even as their bodies crashed against him and brought him to the ground in a mad tangle of jerking limbs. He felt their crushing weight, and oddly enough felt no pain. He felt constraint, which was different. He couldn't move, because their bodies pressed against his. He couldn't breathe, because a bunch of them were on his heaving chest. He couldn't see anything but limbs and close-up faces with darkened eyes. He was pretty damn sure he was at the bottom of a stampede. He kicked and punched and jerked away. When the world darkened, it happened so fast he did not even feel it coming. His last thought was to fight and rage, and he was almost sure he was still kicking even when the lights turned out..._

"You were always one of my favorites," Alastair murmured, crouching on the ground and lowering his face to Dean's, "While I am vastly displeased at the condition they have left you to me, I guarantee you I am happy you are at least alive."

Dean glared at him hotly.

"Do you not hate this mortal shell, Dean?" Alastair asked, "These cursed vessels, these bodies... they are weak. You can only do so much with them, before they die. In hell, we enjoyed a breadth of unimaginable freedom, didn't we? Innovative torture without fearing for the finiteness of our specimens. In hell, they can live through being reduced to a million broken pieces, and the next day simply be made whole again. For us to enjoy again."

"Us?" Dean gasped, distastefully, "We?"

"Yes," Alastair confirmed, mildly. He looked at Dean with condescension as he tsked. "Oh, Dean. Suffering illusions of grandeur and heroism again, are _we_? Still disassociating yourself. Poor boy."

"What are you talking about?" Dean rasped.

"Tell me, do you feel any different?" Alastair asked.

"What are you--"

"You should just answer the question," Alastair advised, "Not like I am asking you for secrets on the angels or the war or... your coveted brother. A simple question. Do you feel different? Do you feel like yourself?"

"I don't know what--"

"Then I shall tell you," Alastair declared, rising to his feet and beginning to pace around the room. Dean's gaze followed him as he walked, and noticed that they were in a grimy warehouse of some sort; the high ceilings, wide windows, exposed beams and rusted, tarnished sheet metal were sure indicators.

"I am going to tell you something you will absolutely hate," Alastair said, "But it is the truth, and no one else will tell it to you but me. When you tortured all those souls... when you enjoyed their hurt... it's easy for people to tell you that it's not your fault. It's not your fault because Hell broke you. It's not your fault you were driven to a place where you lost your mind and lost yourself. It's not your fault because you've held out longer than anyone else has. Well, Dean. That is a crock of _shit_.

"You ain't broke," Alastair went on, "Your mind's intact. If you lost it, you wouldn't be back here, still feeling like yourself. You'd be someone else entirely, someone brutal and unforgiving and indiscriminate and bloodthirsty, molded by your time in Hell. But you're not. You're not crazy. You're still _you_. You know what that means? That means that you own the acts that you did. You understood what it was and you knew what it meant. Whoever that torturer in hell was is not some crazy, traumatized, excusable version of you. That torturer _was_ you, and still _is_. He's in there somewhere, Dean. Somewhere inside you sitting, just waiting for the next pain you can inflict. You are a dirty little hypocrite with more blood in your hands than many of my present allies, the ones you seek to defeat for being 'evil.' Pots and kettles, Dean..."

_How I feel... Inside me? I wish I couldn't feel anything anymore Sammy. I wish I couldn't feel a damn thing..._

"I never," Dean breathed, licking his lips futilely, "Never said I was a hero. Or that... that I didn't do those things."

"Then we are once in again beginning to come to an accord of things," Alastair said, "All right, then. You understand that the acts are your own. But why then do you crucify yourself for these acts? Why do you deny yourself the pleasure of your strength, your power? Why can't we feel pride, and... and _lust_ for the things that we are great at? Guilt and shame are God's inventions, not ours. And they are illogical ones. His only goal could possibly be that we lessen ourselves, that we diminish ourselves, that we may not outshine him.

"You know pain has a very transformational quality?" Alastair explained, tone turning scholarly again, "You weather something and it turns you into something else. You get to see if you are strong or weak, and life changes thereafter. Torture can turn you into a tool, a toy, a trembling little nothing. Or it can make you stronger and crazy-alive. _I _brought you to life, Dean. _I _brought _you_ to life. When you got off that rack, there was a light in your eyes and just _fire_ to your step. I looked at you as you tore into those souls and knew then that torture was not destruction, no, but _creation_. I made a monster out of you, a monster out of one amongst the purest of hearts. I _made _you, as I have made many others who were far less. I have changed you, despite what goodness founded in you. That is godliness.

"I will do so again," Alastair declared, lifting a sleek knife he had in his hand, "With your blood we will wash away the stain of your shame and guilt. Blood is real, blood is life. You will come to see that in truth, you are one of us... perhaps even one of the very best of us."

"Never," Dean said, adamantly.

Alastair just gave him a beatific smile.

"We both know we've heard that one before," Alastair said, "I know you'll come to your senses, soon enough. That, or die. Either way. I know because I know you better than anybody. You were mine for forty years, Dean. Longer than your father, longer than Sammy. I'm the one who knows you best."

" " "

_Chicks dig scars._

_The corollary to this, therefore, is that Dean Winchester dug them too, most of the time._

_Aside from the female appeal, there was another reason he liked scars: while almost every scar on his body held its own sick history, many of them held memories as tender as they could get in the Winchesters' distorted world._

_There was one in his hand. He was eleven, tripped in school or something. Total lame wipe-out, the very least of his scars in that there was nothing vaguely heroic about it, not related to hunting or anything important. He just literally fell on his sad ass. He thought his father wouldn't give a damn, or tell him to be more careful, or scold him for being reckless. But John Winchester sat him down and gently tended his hand as if the wound was something Dean would have died from if it was left alone. His father's hands were wiry and adroit, knowing exactly where to go and what to do. Dean watched, fascinated, as his father poured in heart and soul to a few stitches of what was essentially a nothing-injury both in terms of how he acquired it and the danger to his health._

_"I'm fine, dad," Dean said, quietly. There was something going on, because John just grunted and kept on working, turning Dean's hand over and over carefully when there was nothing left to do._

_"Good as new," Dean smirked at him, and finally John looked up to meet his eyes. John looked..._ _different. His eyes were gentler, crinkled at the sides in kind earnestness. He looked weathered and comforting. He looked like a dad, and Dean realized that if he had gotten the injury on a hunt, dad would have gone all Major Payne on him and ran his mouth on about it. Acquiring a scar on an ordinary day in an ordinary way, though, and John Winchester was just a father. Worried, caring, gentle. Therefore... maybe Dean didn't need to be so tough about it either._

_"It does hurt a bit," he admitted, quietly, "And I fell in front of the cool kids."_

_John smiled at him slightly. They understood each other very well, didn't they? John's eyes warmed, and then clouded again. _Clouded,_ and Dean could think of no better term than that, because it was like shades of gray hovering over a sunny day, threatening to bring the rain. John recognized the misplaced ordinariness of their current situation, and self-awareness always indicated a certain level of detachment. _This isn't us...

_What Dean saw in his father's eyes then scared the crap out of him. _Doubt_. The thing about his father was that John was always so damn sure about things. Even drunk and grieving, he was single-minded. Doubt was new. Doubt sent fear stabbing into Dean's little heart._

_"I'm sorry, Dean," John said quietly._

_Dean bit his tongue at 'For what.' They both knew. Dean's always known that the life they led was unconventional, to say the least. John was sorry that Dean's scrapes came from nighttime heroic excursions instead of fun and games or even stupid, meaningless everyday trips and falls. John was sorry that the earnest father was not the man who ran the Winchester show. John wanted to bring his wife's killer to justice. He was doing the best he could with two kids. They both knew that. But maybe sometimes it needed saying too._

_"Sometimes I just wish I--" John cut himself off. The continuation of the statement changed often. Sometimes, John wished it was he who died instead of Mary. Other times, he wished he could let himself leave his children somewhere safe; this was no life for them. Today, he just wished for _normal_. _

_"What a klutz, huh?," Dean said, "I'll be more careful, I promise."_

_John's hand spasmed against Dean's. Painfully, but Dean kept the wince to himself. His father held on for a long moment, like his son was a lifeline. _

_It was one of those scars Dean regretted losing when he was pulled out of Hell_.

" " "

"This is what pulled you from my side," Alastair breathed, almost reverently, as he used his knife to cut through the left sleeve of Dean's shirt. He pushed the raggedly cut material back to take a good look at the mark Castiel's hand had left on Dean's shoulder.

Alastair chuckled to himself in gleeful anticipation, and pressed his palm against the mark, irreverntly. He pushed, and then gripped, fingers digging into Dean's flesh, and against the fresh bullet wound in the hand-mark's periphery. Dean hissed at the pain but otherwise kept his mouth shut.

"We must right some wrongs," Alastair said with a decisive nod, "Put things back where they belong. Punish you right and proper."

He laughed, as he pressed his gleaming knife against Dean's skin, about an inch below the palm of Castiel's mark. The sharp blade broke the skin easy, reducing Dean's breaths to hurting, rapid, shallow gasps. Alastair's hands were steady, as he sank the blade in deep enough to cut but not to kill. Dean growled and strained against his bonds as Alastair dragged the knife around the outline of the hand-mark.

Dean only cried out when the angle of the knife switched from outlining the mark to sliding just underneath the skin. He gasped and bucked, but _damn_ was Alastair a cool customer. Gleefully, the demon pulled the hand-shaped skin off of Dean's arm, making him scream.

It was another scar he hated to lose.

" " "

_On the other hand, there were some scars Dean absolutely and positively _abhorred_._

_These were the scars that decorated his younger brother's body, especially the ones that were meant for him._

_A hunt had gone sour. Dean was on his back, and would have kissed his own ass goodbye if he had any sort of strength left in him. Suddenly Sam was there, standing over him, covering him, protecting him, defying the world. The damn kid was supposed to be left in the car_, he was thinking. _Then the lights went out._

_When he woke up, he had that heavy feeling that days have come and gone and passed him by. He opened heavy-lidded eyes and focused on the odd sight of his twelve-year-old kid brother with his shirt off, standing in front of a mirror in the motel room and making tough-guy faces as he touched at the ragged scar – still a bit swollen and red- marring his thin, heaving chest._

_"What the hell are you doing?" Dean rasped from the bed, making Sam jump. Sam slipped on a t-shirt before gingerly walking to Dean's bedside. His face was beet-red._

_"I've never gotten a scar for you before," Sam said quietly, eyes earnest, "I've never gotten hurt for you before. It's kind of... cool."_

_Dean's eyebrows must have shot to the ceiling, "Sammy? What are you on?"_

_"Nothing," Sam said, smiling slightly. He looked... suffused, proud of himself. He looked_ taller_._ _It was a weird, warming feeling, having someone watching your back like this. Having a kid brother feel proud to take a hit that was meant for you._

_Still... Dean didn't like seeing his brother's flesh fucking _marred_. This life had already done its share of damage to Sam, Dean did not want them imprinted on his body. As soon as he was steady on his feet, he defied his father's necessary frugality and splurged on those girly anti-scarring creams, and was a total drill sergeant about Sam keeping up with them. The scar faded with time, and was all but gone the next time Dean realized Sam had grown up again, and he was already leaving for California._

" " "

_There was one more type of scar that Dean hated._

"Do you know what a 'Glasgow Smile' is?" Alastair asked, as Dean tried to gather his wits about him.

_Dean hated getting any marks on his face. _

_Maybe it was his one vanity. _Maybe_. Maybe it was just that he understood perfectly well that while '_Chicks dug scars_,' they liked the hidden ones, the mysterious ones. Not the freaky _'Phantom of the Opera_' ones. _Maybe_. More fundamentally, however..._

_Dean was in many ways, an actor. Sam liked spitefully saying that their lives were a fraud sometimes, but to Dean it was more of an act: the fake identities, the poor-man's James Bond act he liked pulling... The best role he played, though, was the one that hid his pains. Cover it up with a smirk and a joke, how he was hurting by his father's neglect, by his brother's disdain for their lifestyle, by his perceived inadequacies, hurting by the strains and nightmares of the life they led. _

_He didn't like getting scars on his face because wounds there were unmistakable, unconcealed, screaming all that pain to the world. A scar on the face was saying, _This is the life I've led. This is the pain I've seen... _Things Dean would rather keep to himself._

"Or perhaps you would know it better by the term 'Chelsea Grin,'" Alastair said. He leaned his weight over Dean's chest, and gripped Dean's chin tightly in his left hand. He pressed the tip of his knife against the right-side corner of Dean's lip. Dean struggled against him, bucking uselessly.

"Sonofabitch!" Dean gasped, struggling as the knife went deeper, but again never deep enough to kill, just cutting skin. Alastair glided the blade upward, creating a wound on Dean's face that was like an extension of Dean's lips, curved into a smile. Alastair stopped cutting halfway through Dean's right cheek.

Dean choked on his anger and pain, and at the blood that was gathering in his mouth. He coughed up and spat it out, very much aiming for the evil bastard's eye. He had a chance to try again, when Alastair did the exact same thing on the left side of his face.

"People think of the craziest ways to hurt each other, don't they?" Alastair said, pushing against Dean roughly to stand, "You should have a finer appreciation of your history, Dean. The history of cruelty and torture. If you did, you would know what happens next."

Alastair placed a decisive kick on Dean's already injured chest. He cried out in a surprised scream, and then felt the cuts on his face tear wider, making him scream all the more in pain and misery.

_He hated getting any marks on his face. _

_He didn't like getting scars on his face because wounds there were unmistakable, unconcealed, screaming all that pain to the world. A scar on the face was saying, _This is the life I've led. This is the pain I've seen.

" " "

Sam Winchester was never big on waiting.

It would be argued by many that it was Dean Winchester who was more impatient, but Sam knew different. Then again... maybe _Dean _treated Sam differently, prompting the younger brother to believe that Dean was much more patient than Sam.

Sam was the one with the questions, not able to just take being kept in the dark by their father, or be protected by Dean, or be held back from the rest of his life. Sam liked making things happen for himself. Later on in life, he guessed it was symptomatic of wanting to catch up to a brother who was four years older. That was in one of his core psychology classes, and the realization was attached to a random memory that weirdly enough warmed his heart.

_Dean picked him up from school so that they could walk home together. It was one school in a litany, one day in a thousand, just one more walk in many they've taken together before. Dean was eleven, and Sam was seven. Dean told Sam he learned a new word in class and said: "Sam, you are _precocious._" He said the last, new word very carefully, so that Sam would pick it up too. _

Sam picked up the word fast. Sam picked _everything_ up quickly. He needed less and less help reaching for the cupboard, and needed less and less help with bullies, and less and less help with homework. It wasn't until after he left his family for Stanford that he realized that he always felt it was safe to rush into things, or to fly and excel because his older brother was always around to play safety-net. Sometimes, absence really makes things clearer and more pronounced, and Sam realized what Dean has been doing for him. In California, suddenly Dean wasn't there, and it was a feeling that left his back feeling cold.

The feeling fortunately didn't last long. Sam Winchester, both by his father and brother's hands, was made hardy. School came easy because he had a firm understanding that there were things in life that were infinitely harder and worse. Once in awhile, though... _once in awhile_... he needed Dean around too.

Legally Blond_ came out on cable and on a lark, he watched it with a female friend. There was that scene when the people were comparing their life experiences and consequently their right to be included in the Harvard Law program by talking about their achievements in the field. The experiences ranged from humanitarian efforts and feminist movements, and then closed in on Reese Witherspoon talking about sweaters and Cameron Diaz. Sam had laughed and said that would be him unless he did anything differently._

_Months later, he would be on a voluntary field mission in a camp for displaced persons in Northern Uganda, taking stock of the humanitarian crisis to enrich his perspectives on international law and practice, and in preparation for the admissions season to law school._

_He hasn't talked to his family in a long time, but he was there all of two days- a witness to some of humanity's worst atrocities- before he felt it was only natural to give Dean a call._

_"Yeah, who's this?" came his older brother's breathy voice. Sam winced when he realized he must have called at an insane hour in the States, but he didn't care too much._

_"Dean, it's me," he said._

_"Oh hey Sammy!" the voice perked up, and Sam could actually imagine Dean sitting up in bed, "Hey, the number you're using didn't register."_

_"It's 'cos it's long distance," Sam said, "So I can't stay on too long either."_

_"That's all right," Dean said, "So where are you? Cancun or something? You know, like all those other college people?"_

_Sam smiled tightly, and his eyes inexplicably watered in endearment, and a brand of comfort that he sometimes forgot he missed and needed, "I'm in Uganda, in a refugee camp."_

_Dean whistled, "Doing some good there?"_

_"Trying," Sam amended, sounding more glum than he usually liked to convey._

_"Huh," Dean said, thoughtfully._

_"I called, you know," Sam rambled, "'Cos if I don't pick up or if you can't reach me, then you'd like, know why." He added a lie: "That's all."_

_But they were brothers, and Dean always knew how to sift through the bullshit. He, after all, made a lot of his own too._

_"You all right?" he asked._

_"Yeah, sure," Sam lied. He realized he called Dean because somewhere inside him, there was still a kid who expected his older brother to fix everything. When Sam fell, or had reached a dead in in homework, or couldn't finish a task, or got hurt in a hunt, Dean could always fix things, and that was the mentality he grew up with. It was ridiculous, but was it so hard to believe there was a part of Sam that believed Dean could fix crimes against humanity too?_

_"What's it like?" Dean asked quietly, reading into Sam again._

_"They're good people," Sam shared, "They have so little but you'd never know by how some of them share, and the kids, man. The kids are still smiling somehow."_

_"Yeah?"_

_"Yeah," Sam said, "But there's lots of things going on with the rebellion and the way some of these women are being treated... it kind of... kind of..." he lost his words. It was okay, Dean was supposed to fix that too._

_"Bad stuff, huh," Dean said, like Sam was a kid again. Sam didn't mind, not today, not after the things he's seen. _

_"Bad stuff," Sam echoed._

_"Well they're lucky they got you there," Dean said, "I'm proud of you, Sammy. Dad would be too."_

_"He's with you?"_

_"Not right now," Dean said, "I'll be meeting up with him soon. Pretty cool though, Sammy Winchester's saving the world over there."_

_Sam snorted, and ran his hands over watery eyes. "I gotta go, man. This is costing me an arm and a leg."_

_"Call collect next time," Dean said, scolding him mildly, "We don't have fake cards for nothing, for crying out loud."_

_Sam laugh-cried, and said goodbye before he changed his mind_.

"I hate waiting," Sam said, under his breath.

"We're seeing some pretty big changes," Bobby reported, "You gotta steel yourself, Sam. We're storming in there soon enough."

"It's not nearly soon enough."

To be continued...


	4. Steps Behind

Author:Mirrordance

Title: **Steps Behind**

Summary:56 seals down, 10 left to open. It's 2009, and Lucifer's standing on the welcome mat. At the eve of the final battle in a losing war, the Winchesters make their last goodbyes, and at this end of days, Dean is finally learning to let Sam go.

**Author's Note**:

Okay gang! First off, thanks so much for all who read, alerted, favorited and especially all who reviewed the previous chapter of _Steps Behind_. As promised, here's the semi-conclusion. I will be giving extended review responses in the upcoming Epilogue and Afterword, which will be posted with a preview of my new project, entitled _Open, Shut_, in the next few days (or hours, depending on my mood haha).

A very important note: Expect some pretty graphic stuff on this chapter. I've warned people in the last chapter I posted but I just want to make sure I don't shock anyone and that I'm fair in my warnings.

Anyway, happy reading, I hope you drop me a line to tell me what you think, and 'til the next post, which would be the last for this story. C&C's always welcome!

" " "

_**4: Steps Behind**_

" " "

2009

" " "

"Can anyone who's done what you've done ever be saved?" Alastair asked, and it was a fair question that Dean Winchester had also often asked himself.

_Dean was not a huge fan of mathematics. _

_Aside from the basics, he didn't see much other use for it in his line of work. However, as in most things Dean felt he needed in life, he excelled in it too. While Sam was great with humanities: literature and history when they were younger, and eventually philosophy and the law, it was the practical and the physical that Dean had an aptitude for: the sure and quantifiable sciences like math and physics and chemistry. They both equally sucked at art. Either way... if Sam had less of a sense of self-preservation, he would have been calling his older brother _geek-boy_ instead of letting it happen the other way around._

_A few months after getting back from hell, Dean inexplicably started reacquainting himself with that math-side of his, scrawling down seemingly random numbers on table napkins. He could tell that Sam had noticed and was worried, but his younger brother said nothing, giving his older brother the elbow-room he needed to sort himself out. Sam had come to expect that from Dean lately: the ability to start opening up and speaking about the things that bothered him, made necessary by circumstances so dire that he was apparently filled to capacity._

_The first of the table napkin doodles had the number 3,650. After a job, the number would decrease. 3,640. 3,637... Sam always looked confused and admittedly, the numbers seemed a little random up until one job that turned bad and they lost a mother and a child in the melee. When the table napkin doodle went up from 3,637 to 3,639, Sam had finally guessed what the numbers meant. Dean knew Sam knew, because when Sam makes realizations, his eyes scream them out._

_Dean tortured souls for ten years. Each year had 365 days. He had lost count of how many he had hurt, but if he tortured a soul a day, that made 3,650 victims over the course of ten years. Every person they saved decreased that number, as if his actions now could make up for the actions of the past. Every person they lost Dean added to his debt. He could have deducted lives he saved in the past, but he wasn't made that way; he'd have done all that anyway, so they didn't count. That was just one of many rules. It was so insanely, compulsively screwy._

_It was also why they were doing as many jobs as they could; the closer that number got to zero, the sooner Dean would able to find some sort of peace with himself. In the meantime, the nightmares went on, and the compulsive counting. It was so compulsive that once, he had even caught himself jotting down 'Dog?' when one of the casualties they lost in a job was the family pet. Dean added one more count to his debts. Apparently, dogs counted too..._

_Dean noticed that Sam couldn't help but do a little bit of counting himself. He wanted Dean to feel he was saved. He wanted Dean to have to stop making up for things that weren't his fault. So Sam went for easy jobs so that they could finish quicker and do more. He went for prioritizing jobs based on geographic location so that they could do as many jobs in an area and not lose any time on the road. He had also stopped complaining about sleeping in the car most of the time, instead of kicking back in a motel. Dean noticed and was grateful, but he said nothing too._

_Things were bound to come to a head, anytime that the fairly loud-mouthed Winchesters kept things to themselves. The brothers took on an unconventional job that conventionally almost got them killed. A street prophet foresaw the destruction of a town in an industrial disaster, and had called up Bobby Singer for help because no one else would believe him but hunters. Bobby brought the Winchesters along. The only solution was to empty the several-thousand strong town, and the job was made even more complex by the fact that the prophet also saw the Winchesters dying if they did not leave._

_Dean wanted Sam _out _of there but he was determined to stay and help or die trying. Besides... saving several thousand people all in one job would bring him closer to being saved, bring that 3,650 down to zero all the sooner. It was the first time they talked (_or argued, or screamed_) about the crazy numbers. Dean stayed. Sam perforce stayed too. Predictably, they almost got killed. But 3,650 did go down to zero in the end._

_Another job well done and another conversation with Sam later, Dean still wondered why he felt dirty and irredeemable. And he began to _really_ believe that no one who's done what he's done could ever be saved after all._

His body was shaking in cold and pain, and just the frigid fear that maybe Alastair was right. The thought was paralyzing, made the world all the colder, made him feel more alone, more sore, more hurt, less human, less alive... just... _less..._

He coughed, and the blood that leaked into his mouth from the cuts on the sides of his face mixed with the blood he had dredged up from the deeper parts of him that were broken inside, bubbled noisily from his mouth. He sucked in breath after whistling breath, one harder than the last. He thought maybe the demons who had brought him here and Alastair's Glasgow smile kicker had shook something important loose, something that he thought was just healing when he went out in the field.

He shuddered, and closed his eyes. The misery was not new, but that didn't mean it sucked any less. He coughed again, and felt Alastair's firm fingers grip his face by his bleeding cheeks. The demon tilted his head at him, thoughtfully.

"You are not as hardy as before," he said, sounding eerily calm and mildly annoyed.

"Fuck you," Dean rasped, opening his eyes and spitting blood on the demon's face.

Alastair didn't blink, didn't flinch. He sniffed, and let Dean's head go with dispassion. He touched the blood on his face, not-quite wiping at it. He placed stained fingers beneath his nose, took an indulgent sniff, and frowned.

"You are broken inside," he concluded thoughtfully. Dean believed him because, well, he felt like shit, but also because Alastair's specialty was torture and all the bodily reactions entailed by it.

"I did say I hated this mortal shell," Alastair murmured, looking mildly regretful, "But never mind that. You are not long for this world, you know. And when you pass, where you will go, you will be at my disposal again."

"That's not what I heard," Dean said, grinning at him sickly, even as his heart thudded in mild panic. _What if... what if..._

"You are irredeemable, Dean," Alastair sighed, "You are one of us, one of the best of us. You've done the same things we have done, worse than some... what makes you so different? Is it your love? But many of us have sinned for those we've loved. Many of us love still. Is it your sacrifice? But surely that is negated by your sins. Is it your belief in God? You are about as much of a believer as I – _if he's there, he's not doing too good a job_. How can you be forgiven and I, not? Why are you so different?"

"I'm good-looking."

Alastair smiled at him acidly, "Not anymore."

Dean snorted, and coughed again when it irritated his stuffy, heavy, increasingly impossible chest. The spell lasted long, and he couldn't seem to get a decent breath. He hacked and gasped, dragged on air, and felt the world begin to spiral away.

"Upright," he heard Alastair murmur. The bonds on his wrists and ankles suddenly loosened, and while his mind reveled in the delusion that cried '_You just made a big mistake, buddy!_,' his body just jerked in its agonies, and he heard himself cry out in pain when Alastair hauled him up to a seated position.

The change did ease his chest some after the initial shock, clearing his vision a little and giving him a bit more air. It was air enough to be a smart-ass, so it was _air enough_.

"You got nothin' better to do than bug me?" he gasped, looking at Alastair blearily as he swayed where he sat. Alastair re-tied his wrists, and motioned for some lackey from somewhere to come over.

"Rope," he commanded, and motioned up to the rafters and exposed beams on the warehouse ceiling. The other demon gave a short nod, and tossed the rope up to wind around a beam, and then catching the end that came back down.

"I can do things that please me," Alastair said, standing up and stepping back as the other demon took over his position before Dean. The other demon wound the rope around the ones tying Dean's wrists together, and then stepped away.

"Pull him up," Alastair ordered.

Dean gasped as he was dragged to his feet, and then was lifted clear off the floor, hanging by his wrists from the ceiling. The position created constriction around his ribs, making him cough again.

"I'm thinking of sending Sammy one of your ears," Alastair said, "Might make him come to his senses about which side to play for. We are raising our lord, but it is always good to have someone like him on the fold. Wouldn't want him causing trouble in the future. Ears, though... I think it lacks some character. I'd give him the flesh I took from your shoulder, Castiel's Mark, but I think I want to keep that for myself. Maybe one of your ringed fingers..." he drifted off and chuckled, "I would have to think about that, or at least consult with Lilith. I told you I can do the things that please me and take my time about it now, Dean. We are winning after all, you know."

_Sure you are_, Dean thought, wishing he could grin and pull the bunny out of the hat and say '_No way. Sammy's coming and you're going down, fucker_.'

" " "

Sam detested how the current situation was shaping up to be a little familiar. On the boundaries of the small town, the convoy was accosted by a police car which Ruby rapidly informed him was being driven by a demon. The last time he went through something like this, Dean didn't come out so pretty, or even _alive_ for that matter.

The dispatch of the two demons wearing cop meatsuits were quick and easy; two demons in their Earthly shells were no match for them at all. The angels were going to do a droning exorcism, or render the vessels unconscious and then tie them up. Sam was in no mood to waste Dean's time, and took matters into his own hands.

One eye turned toward a stiff-lipped Castiel and another to his task, he raised his hand, and exorcised both demons at the same time _with his mind '_til the bodies fell boneless to the ground.

The angels watched him warily and looked for signals from Castiel, except for Uriel who was glaring at Sam hotly. Ruby stood in a cautious stance, ready to defend Sam if he was to be disturbed.

The group fell into a deadly silence of wordless people, angels and demons, and the murmur of their still-running cars purred in the night.

"Let's clean this up, keep it quiet," Bobby said, breaking the spell. When he spoke it was as if things started moving again. He began to pull one of the two cops back into their car, "They're alive. They'll be fine in here until they come around."

"Darkness gathers about this abomination—" Uriel began furiously at Castiel, but bit his tongue when Sam stalked toward him, blocking him from getting in Castiel's face and stared at him steadily.

"I'll get my brother back," Sam told him, darkly and calmly, "I'll do your dirty fighting for you because I'm the only one who can, and then you figure out whatever the hell you want to do with me after. Right now, stop wasting my damn time."

"You walk a slippery slope, Samuel," Uriel guaranteed him.

"He is aware," Castiel said, stepping between the two. He placed a calming hand on Uriel's shoulder, "Stand down, brother. There are always unenviable choices that must be made in war. I cannot know the future, but I do know the things that need be done at present. Our backs are pressed to the wall. I will take responsibility."

"Your eyes are cloudy," Uriel hissed at him, "You have grown soft and careless with this family. You do not see things as they are."

"I see enough," Castiel insisted, "I will take responsibility."

Uriel flinched, but nodded. "On your head be it, Castiel. But if you think you are helping him," he pointed Sam's way, "You are dooming him."

He glared at Sam, before turning away and returning to his vehicle. Their other allies dragged the cops into the backseat of their squad car, before driving the car into the wood that lined the road and covered it up with foliage.

Bobby laid down his laptop and spread a map of the area on the hood of the Impala, as the group crowded around him and angled for a view.

"I think this is gonna be it," he said, "Dean's been stationary here," he pointed to a spot on the map, "for about twelve hours now. Since then, we've seen some pretty considerable demonic movements headed that way, closing in around this town. I think we just hit the outer perimeter with those two cops. They only do that when Lilith's in town."

"What's that spot Dean's in?" Sam asked, "What are we looking at?"

"Old warehouse," Bobby replied, "Once owned by a food distributor. Empty craphouse now, has been for years."

"What's the surrounding area?" Ruby asked.

"The warehouse is pretty centrally-located," Bobby answered, "She's right downtown. Small businesses and semi-residential buildings all around. It's gonna be urban warfare, folks. We gotta go in on the stealth because they have the high ground. I say we get off the roads, ditch the cars in the wood, and then go into town the rest of the way by foot."

"And no supernatural mumbo-jumbo if we run into bit-player trouble," Ruby piped in, glancing at Sam warily, "Sam can probably get away with it because the energy levels and the power he uses is not anomalous to demons. Angel crap they'd get a handle on. We have to keep the mojo bags and stay low until we're too close they can't do anything about it."

" " "

The ban on the use of Angelic powers necessitated the use of earpiece radios that each member of the group donned and sound-tested after they parked their vehicles in the woods bordering the town. Not everyone in the party would be joining the stealthy attack; Bobby Singer and one of the techies they traveled with stayed behind to man the laptops and coordinate the radios. The doctors and nurses they brought along who had no combat experience also stayed behind along with their heavier equipment, with the attacking team bearing only an experienced field medic with them for any necessary initial treatment.

All in all, ten angels, a demon and Sam Winchester quietly walked from the temporary base camp set up in the woods, toward the small town bearing their duffel bags of weapons, salt and miscellaneous supplies. They were approaching the warehouse from the shortest distance, which was a roughly straight line that would cut across a park, a school building, a junkyard and some apartments. It was nighttime and so they had some cover, but the moon was full so not a lot either.

The group crouched in the brush, right at the treeline. Crossing the park would leave them out in the open, especially if some demons were keeping watch from the high ground - the nearest building, which was the school library.

"Your night guard's possessed and 'trolling the third floor," Ruby observed.

"So's the janitor," Sam said grimly, "Up at the fifth."

"We are about to come to some aid," Castiel murmured, smiling a little and looking up at the night skies. The black, swirling clouds of the deep evening were crawling toward the light of the moon. "At its darkest, we make for the east side of the building."

"We gotta have our own eyes in the sky," Sam said quietly, "We need people to be in a position to tell us if we're about to run into something." He called for Bobby on his radio, "Any ideas Bobby?"

"The building a block west of the school," came the radio-warbled reply, "It's the highest building for miles. Chances are Lilith's got a watching post there though."

"We win that one we get the high ground," Sam said, looking at Castiel, "What do you think?"

"The guards will only thicken the closer we get to our destination," Castiel said, "It's worth trying to take it."

"We must move," Uriel declared, a breath before the moonlight was completely covered by the swirling, inky skies.

" " "

There was something inexplicably creepy about little girls.

When Dean was a kid, he always marveled at how fricking _clean _they were. Damn near-immaculate. The ones he knew in the schools he went to and in the playgrounds he brought Sam to were smart as hell and both bossy and annoyingly caring. They were more than a little bit stifling, a little bit overwhelming. They were like their mothers' _Mini-me_'s, which was in itself freaky, all these tiny adults walking around, prim and proper and disapproving of him and his old, grimy clothes and asking about his bruises and asking if they could help. He always liked girls, even at a young age. They freaked him out, but he liked them anyway. He never minded being looked after by women.

Still... the neatness, the precociousness, the prim control was fucking anomalous, wasn't it? Downright supernatural. When he was a kid he just lived with it. Older, though... they really just creeped the hell out of him.

Lilith liked occupying the bodies of beautiful little girls as her earthly vessels. For one reason or other. It was probably their inexplicable capacity for both youth and wisdom, and their driven, unstoppable nature. Big, bad Yellow-Eyes and Alastair were their own brands of archetypal menace, of course, but an ambitious, ages-old demon in a little girl's doll-like body was like _Chucky_, just... a perversion of something youthful and clean.

Her strides were small and the sounds of her shining leather shoes were soft as she entered the warehouse and walked toward him, her head tilted in appreciation, her eyes wide and earnest, as a child would indulgently marvel at a new toy. She was flanked by a two other demons.

"Hello Dean," she greeted him sunnily, "And I thought you'd left me forever."

"I thought so too," he rasped, looking down at her.

She frowned prettily. "But I thought we were friends."

"Well yeah," he grunted, wincing as he shifted against his bound wrists, "You know in that, _'With friends like these...' _sense, sure."

"You know I don't like sarcasm," she said voice lowering a little in a way that made the demons behind her wince.

"You know I don't like being tied up."

Her lips flattened, and her eyes narrowed. Before her gaze shined again and she shook her head flippantly.

"Silly goose," she said, "You wouldn't have to be if you just be my friend again."

"I think you got enough."

"They're not as good as you."

Dean flinched at that, knowing what it meant. Lilith liked torture, and he had been damn good, _oh yes_. Her eyes shined all the more, and her grin widened evilly, having seen the pain cross his face. She had don it on purpose, of course, a statement perfectly calculated and delivered in disguise but nonetheless having the expected effect.

"There's something you never asked us, Dean," she said, "You never once asked any of us how good your father had been."

" " "

"They got this Sam, we can go," Ruby said quietly, breaking into his thoughts with a hand on his arm. He looked down at her, and then at the roof of the building where their assault on the high ground was just petering out.

Angels scattered about, with now-emptied demonic vessels lying on the ground. Castiel walked toward them.

"Bobby, we have the high ground," Sam said over the comm, "We can see everything in town from up here."

"Great. Leave about four of the bunch behind, Sam," came the older hunter's recommendation, "You won't need as many people on the assault since we took over their eyes, but our people are gonna need some muscle up there in case replacements come in or the demons start to wonder why they're not hearing from those bastards you put down."

"Got it," Sam said.

Castiel heard the recommendation and began making quick reassignments as Sam shifted impatiently from leg to leg. Ruby senses his apprehension beside him.

"You gotta keep your head, Sam," she said, "I'm going to tell you something you're going to hate, but it needs to be said."

"What?" he asked, testily.

"He won't look good when we find him," she guaranteed, making him wince.

"He'll be—"

"'_Fine_,' I know," she finished for him, "Winchester mantra, I'm intimately familiar with it. But he's the last thing you should look at, you have to remember that. Lilith will be there, Alastair will be there. There's no saving him if we don't get them first. Dean knows what he got himself into. Handle him last."

Sam was going to argue, he really was. But it was a fair assessment of an unfair situation, so he just nodded. "I know."

"We will receive instructions from our allies up here as to the safe paths to take on the streets below," Castiel announced, coming up to Sam and Ruby. He was flanked by Uriel, three of the four other angels Dean had gone to that fallen seal with - Elizabeth, Ian and Christian, and their field medic, an old war vet named Nick.

Sam nodded, and glanced at the warehouse they were going to be storming. "Not a lot of exits or windows on that thing. Let's salt it shut before we storm in, play for keeps."

"I concur," Castiel said.

"When we burst through that door," Sam added, "I'm going straight for Lilith."

"I assumed as much," Catsiel said.

"Alastair in the meantime will have his hands full with Castiel and I," Uriel said.

"Everyone else's objective," Castiel ordered, "Is to ensure that we reach our targets."

"Like a football game," Ian said, eyes enlightened. His vessel looked like a linebacker, so it was a fair and appropriate analogy.

"Time to go," Sam said, running a hand nervously over his hair. Dean was waiting, and he had promised, so he was finally coming.

" " "

"If he did anything," Dean said quickly, "He couldn't have helped it."

"Standards you do not allow for yourself," Alastair commented, "Typical."

"And you still do not ask," Lilith observed, "Afraid of the answer?"

_Yes_, Dean thought. Not primarily because he doubted his father's capacity to withstand torture, no. But more because it was always John Winchester's impossible standards that he held himself up against. He was afraid the answer would be '_Yes your father broke_' and it would hurt him to be the cause of his father's doing evil. He was more afraid, however, that the answer would be 'N_o he never broke_' and it only meant what he knew to be right all along: that he was weak.

_Weak..._ just as Sam said.

_You're holding me back_...

He'd always been afraid of that, _holding people back_. Holding his father back from the things he had to do back when they were kids, fucking up a job, or wanting to heal damn fast so that his father didn't have to be so antsy to jump into the next hunt. When they grew older, this extended to Sam too. Everyone could see the kid could really go places. He just stuck around because well, he was _stuck_. And then he stuck around because of Dean. And then he finally left. Even when he went back to the hunt after the death of Jessica, his heart had always been toward the normal.

_When all this is over_, he would always say.

But life liked throwing curveballs at the tough ones, and Sam got one right on the head. Dean had died for him to live, and then suddenly he was different. Once, Dean had been afraid of holding Sam back from normal life. More recently, Sam said he was holding Sam back from the hunt because he was weak.

_I guess I'm always holding you back_, Dean realized. He held Sam back from normal and safe. And then he's holding Sam back from supernatural and playing with fire too. He was like a cannonball, tied to his younger brother's ankles.

_When will the fear ever stop_, he wondered.

It seemed like he grew up being afraid. He always said he wasn't, but that was just him running his mouth. He was, for instance, scared of fire for a long time. The only thing vaguely comforting about fire was its capacity to burn the things that burned away his mom. The only reason he tolerated it was for that and nothing else.

He was scared for his father a lot; the blank way his eyes get sometimes when he thinks about the shit that had become his life, the helpless way he looks at his sons when he thinks he's not being watched right back. Vanishing for days at a time, coming home drunk or broken... John Winchester's single-minded determination, the way he wears out the carpets sometimes wore on Dean's frayed nerves too.

He was scared for his brother; Sam was a kid he needed to protect. Sam was a smart kid he needed to help grow to full potential. _I don't think he's eating enough. I don't think he's sleeping enough. The research will take time away from his homework. The teacher's gonna see the bruises... he's going away and I can't keep track of any of that anymore..._

When Sam left their family to go to college, he found for the first time that he could be scared for himself too. _Dad will leave me too. I'm gonna die on a job alone and no one will ever find me, no one will ever know._ He realized this when had fallen into a well somewhere, he can't remember because he's decided to forget. But arguably... what was there to forget when all that there was was silence and darkness? He laid there alone and in pain and rather unquestionably dying. The realization that he had to pull himself out had killed something inside him.

_Gotta do it myself..._

_Gotta do everything myself._

He crawled out of there somehow, got himself to a small-time hospital in the middle of nowhere. After that, he was afraid his father would find out he was hurt so bad. He was afraid Sam would find out. He was afraid they would find out because he was afraid to verify that they didn't give a shit. He'd rather they not know, so that he would never know for sure that they didn't care. _Or scratch that. _He knew they cared. He just wasn't sure how much, or if enough to go to where he was, especially since he was gonna live anyway. He'd rather they did not know, because if they did and didn't come, it would confirm that they didn't care nearly enough.

After that he was just more afraid all the time. Afraid for their dad when he went missing. Afraid for Sam and coping with Jessica. Afraid for Sam and his powers. Afraid for his family and their blind thirst for revenge and justice, even at the cost of their own lives. Afraid of his father's Final Order. Afraid for his father in Hell. Afraid that his brother's evil gift would make him follow. Afraid that he was scheduled to go down there too. Afraid of what Sam would become when he dies. Afraid of what Sam was like when he came back. Afraid of what he himself was like when he came back, more broken than ever before. Afraid, afraid, afraid...

Sam had been right when he told him he was weak. Sam had been right when he told him he was holding him back.

Dean was fucking scared, fucking scared of everything.

Scared of the answers, this time.

_When will the fear ever stop?_

"The very nature of the place entails that everyone breaks," Lilith told him, "I find I do not need to tell you much, for you to torture yourself. As a matter of fact... you do remember, don't you? How you broke in the end."

"Let me do it, Lilith," Alastair said, with barely concealed glee. She ignored him definitively, looking up at Dean.

His heart beat a little faster, thudding like the damn pain it always had been inside his chest.

"You do remember, don't you?" she asked him again.

Now Dean... Dean didn't beg. He must have, in Hell, but that was one more thing in a litany he wished he could leave behind. But this was his turf now, and he was just trying to scrape up what was left of his life, wasn't he? Wasn't he broken enough already?

_God, no, please_, he thought.

"Yes," he said, voice gone, powerless. He felt dizzy and weak and desperate.

"There is torture inflicted and there is torture in deprivation," Alastair explained indulgently, "It took me thirty years to understand you, but it was worth it in the end. Pain you could always take. Even gross violation, humiliation, _shame. _What finally broke you in the end--"

"_Please_," he whispered, hating how he sounded, hating himself, but also finding no other recourse. Sam was coming, and Dean promised he would wait. This couldn't be what his younger brother finds.

"Please, no..."

Alastair grinned at him wickedly.

"What you couldn't stand," Alastair said, "Was the darkness and the silence, being deeply and profoundly alone. That was your true torture. When we took away the lights and the sounds, all we had to do was leave you alone, and you managed to torture yourself. Daddy always did say Dean-o could take care of himself."

He jerked against his bonds, as Lilith stepped closer.

_Nonononononononono_....

She looked up at him with a smart tilt of her beautiful little head.

He was not unfamiliar with the white hot tendrils of presence threading its unseen, wiry fingers into his skin.

"No!" he screamed, jerking violently against the ropes that bound him, unthinking now, desperate and hurting and very much scared, recalling this same sensation from the last time he had lost his sight and hearing.

The sounds around him dimmed and was drowned by a loud, insistent ringing that just went louder and louder and louder and louder, shaking his brain, blurring his vision by the tears that streaked from his eyes.

He shut his mouth and pressed his lips together, not wanting his screams to be the last thing he ever heard. His heart thumped, dull in the background of the ringing but he focused on it because it meant by its determined thumping that was still _alive_. It was drowned out, soon enough. Maybe because it had slowed, sluggish now in hurt and weariness, or maybe because the despicable ringing had gone into a screaming crescendo, just before _all _sound abruptly died.

He took a deep, shaky breath, and he tilted his head up to the ceilings as he sought for any vision that was not that of his tormentors. He didn't want them to be the last things he ever saw.

The pain behind his eyes was just sheer, brutal pressure accompanied by burning. _Burn, burn, burn_... he kept them open as long as he could, gaze drifting up his arms, to his bound, chafed wrists, up to the rope that held him, up to the beams on the ceiling that the ropes hung from, up to the small window high along a wall, where the moon was lending her quiet light.

His vision blurred as a shadow took the form of a man, blocking the night sky. He fought to clear his sight, maybe it was a dream or a delusion, but it was Castiel, wasn't it? Castiel with his sorry eyes and a hand pressed against the glass, knowing even from that distance that maybe he had arrived too late.

It seemed kind of right, that he should be ushered into another kind of salvation by Castiel from this fresh perdition.

The world exploded, and then he couldn't hold on anymore. _Everything_ turned pitch black, both by the eyes that have been wrenched from him, and by the now-blessed unconsciousness that claimed him. His head lolled forward, hanging limply, as the rest of him.

" " "

_"No!_" Dean had screamed, and Sam thought he was going to lose his mind.

"Keep your head," Ruby reminded him quietly, and had to physically keep his arm in a lock to keep him from diving unthinking into the fray, as the angels went about hurriedly lining the doors and the windows with salt. Castiel jumped smartly from a rickety metal ladder that went along the side of the building which he had used to get to the upper windows.

His head was low, and his mouth was set in a grim line. The windows had accorded him a view of what was unfolding inside, and this was not looking good. Sam bit his lip at asking. This was the nature of torture. Dean was supposed to get hurt, Dean was meant to scream. But he was going to be fine. He was.

_He had to be_...

"They're both there?" he asked instead, albeit tightly. Dean was okay, that was a given. He wasn't going to waste their time asking about what Castiel saw of his brother.

"Yes," Castiel said, "And three other demons among them. Lower-level, bur presumably skilled if they are on Lilith's guard."

Sam took a deep, shaky breath and nodded. He shook his arms loosely, and then drew out Ruby's knife. Knife or his mind, whichever could be used in the most immediate convenience, he just had to be ready. "We go in straight and crazy."

"There's nothing else in the world," Ruby murmured.

"You burst inside," Nick said, "And then I line the door behind you with salt. No one in there's getting out, and their reinforcements aren't getting inside."

" " "

It all unfolded like a violent dance.

Christian and Ian kicked at the doors, and then stalked forward seemingly with murder on the mind, hands curled and chants in their mouths even before the demons turned to face them. They caught two of the lackeys in a dirty tackle, and Ruby paved the third one away, even as Castiel and Uriel practically flew into Alastair and Sam just ran and plowed into Lilith's small body, grabbing her by the neck, lifting her and slamming her against the wall.

Lilith snarled and glared at Sam, squirming and kicking. He'd have been dead if he hadn't honed some of his skills, feeling the pinch of her will, and bending it against his own. His head began to hurt, but that was a given. He felt like his body was burning, just coming alive in an almost delicious way. He's always been told he was powerful, but his brother's torturer's neck in his hands... there was nothing in the world like it. He almost smiled at her bitterly, except he was so damn blind-mad that he was almost out of his mind.

With her demonic powers checked, he found his hand curling tighter around the tiny neck, making Lilith whimper. Her eyes turned soft, and fearful, as Lilith let the little girl whose body she had taken over to emerge and soften Sam's resolve.

"What are you doing?" the little girl began to cry, "Please, where's my mom?"

Sam's eyes glistened in determination, and only squeezed harder. He drew out Ruby's knife, and pressed it against the little girl's temple.

"Take this body back and face me," Sam said, darkly.

"My mom, please--"

"Stop it!" Sam demanded.

The change was abrupt and reeling. The eyes whitened, went back to beautiful blue and then hardened.

"What are you gonna do, Sam?" Lilith mocked, "Kill me and you kill this girl. Send me back to hell with your gift and I can promise you, I will see _you_ there one day. You feel it, don't you? The power, the fire that's just running in your veins. You're not one of them. You're not even like him."

She meant to have him look at his brother, but Sam knew when he came in here what he had to do, and kept his steady gaze on her face. "I'm not like you."

"Send me back to hell with your mind and you will be," she guaranteed, "Kill the girl with the knife and you will be. Either way, I win in the end. You'll be in hell, on our side. And you'll break too, like your father did. Like poor Dean did. Set me free, let me walk"

"I'll take my chances," he said darkly, dropping the knife almost absently to the ground, pressing his free hand against the side of her face.

"No!" she screamed, and he felt her spirit rearing against him, even as the little body kicked and bucked.

He cried out at the pain in his head, but closed his eyes and focused on sending Lilith back to hell. He felt like he was on fire, and he could hear a violent rushing in his head. His heart thudded against his chest, it was going to burst out of his skin. His skin felt loose, like it was ripping from his body. His body felt small, and inadequate. He felt like he was encompassing the world, just drawing in on its light and warmth and its rage, all of it flooding into his hands.

She was fighting him, as he knew she would. It felt like the world was shaking. But she had feared him in their first confrontation for good reason, Sam realized. Azazel had sought him out especially, Ruby had shifted allegiances and bet on him, and Lilith had every reason to be afraid.

_Fear me, bitch, and get the hell away from me and my family_.

_This is for Dean_.

The world melted into all-encompassing white. He sank to the floor exhaustedly, but even then he knew he had already won.

" " "

Sam gasped and shot up awake, finding that slim to no time had elapsed at all. He staggered to his feet, and ran almost drunkenly up to his brother's unmoving form, strung up by his wrists.

This would mark the fourth time he had found Dean in such a position. The first one was when his brother had been on the menu of a wendigo in Colorado. Sam had gotten his head out of his ass after Jessica's death, realizing that if he didn't shape up, he could lose his chance at revenge, his father who was missing at the time, and worse of all, Dean who was not invincible after all. The second time was after the brothers had a fight in Indiana, and he had left his brother to finish a hunt on his own. The insight from that incident, was oddly similar. _You and me, we're all that's left..._

The third time was when Dean ran afoul of a Djinn who had strung him up to get his blood. That third time, the insight had been the same. At that point, Sam had long known exactly what Dean meant to him, and knew Dean felt the same way. _Brothers. You and me. We're all that's left_.But he had no idea how strongly Dean felt, and what it took for Dean to pull himself out of his fantasy world, and back to the one they had to live in. Because people needed saving, sure. But more because Sammy needed saving, didn't he? _I gotta look after you. That's my job_.

_My job too_, Sam thought, shakily reaching for the pulse point on Dean's neck. The jerky throb of Dean's heart beating against the tips of Sam's fingers relieved him so much that he closed his eyes and noticed for the first time that he was shaking violently and that his damn eyes were leaking. Dean's pulse on his fingers, he imagined that must be the feeling invoked by Michelangelo's _Creation of Adam_ up at the Sistine Chapel_; _this was life, and reaching a hairsbreadth from God.

"Dean," he said, hands against the sides of his brother's lowered face, frowning at the blood from the raggedly cut cheeks and from his ears. He lifted Dean's face carefully to look at him, urge him awake. But he gasped at the sight, hands tearing away from Dean as if burnt as he stumbled back, landing dizzily on his rump as he looked up at his brother.

_His eyes... _

Those unparalleled greens, clear and focused and determined, or lonely and wistful, or crinkled and shiny when he was happy... Those eyes that had looked at Sam fondly, the eyes beneath which he had grown, that had looked after him...

_Burnt, blistered shut in skin of screaming red and pale, pale white. _

_Gone forever._

"Ohgodohgodohgod," Sam moaned, a guttural, unnatural sound coming from a place inside him that he never ever thought to reach again, not since that time he held Dean's dead body in his hands.

_But even then he had his eyes_...

"Help!" he cried out, scrambling back to his feet, not caring if the damn battle was over or if he was the only one, not caring much about anything at all. "Help!"

Ruby was the first beside him, as always. She snatched up the knife he had dropped, and handed it to him. Castiel walked toward them and wordlessly held Dean carefully around the chest, as Sam reached over their heads and cut the ropes, and then lowered Dean's arms slowly. Castiel caught the older Winchester's full weight, and carefully placed him to the ground. Sam cut at the binds on his brother's wrists, putting his limp hands down against his sides.

Sam was a breathless, quivering mess beside his brother, on his knees and not knowing where to put his shaking hands, finally settling on Dean's right hand, keeping it on a white-knuckled grip.

"I'm sorry, Dean," he said softly, "I should have-should have come sooner, I just... _Oh god..._"

Nick pushed his way forward, skidding to his knees as Castiel stepped out of his way. The medic's adroit fingers went for Dean's pulse, and he frowned, eyes scanning the unconscious man's body.

"He's in shock," he muttered, as he started digging into his bag, "Get on the horn, tell them to get the big guns in here now. I think there's a bleed, there's a bleed somewhere and the mess on his face ain't it."

He started feeling around Dean's head, and then down to his neck and shoulders. He checked the skinned part of Dean's arm where Alastair had taken Castiel's mark, but promptly knew that it wasn't what he was looking for. He grabbed the section of shirt that Alastair had cut through to get to the mark, and then tore the shirt open wider, exposing Dean's mottled, heavily bruised torso.

"Jesus," he whispered, eyes shooting up in alarm at Sam, from the sight of an almost blue-black bruise that engulfed Dean's body from three-quarters of his stomach, crawling up to his left side.

Nick's world-weary eyes turned to Castiel, looking justifiably like a messenger about to get shot. "He's bleeding inside. I can't--"

Sam's head shot up to him at that, "What the hell do you mean you can't? You can't what?"

"I c-c-can't," Nick said again, "_No one_ can."

" " "

The only thing that could have freed Sam's hands from that of his brother's was for him to grab a doctor by the collar and make it explicitly clear that _I can't_ is not good enough.

"Sam, don't--" Castiel said, putting a hand against his arm.

Sam pushed the medic aside and turned his trembling ire against the angel, "You were supposed to do your best, look after him. This!" he screamed, pointing at his brother, "This is your god making a goddamn mess. Again!"

"I'm sorry, Sam," Castiel said quietly, "I truly am..."

His eyes were going to pop out of his head, "You're _sorry_? You're _sorry_? That is worth shit to me right now! If you're '_truly' _sorry, then fix him!"

"I am not in a position to--"

"The hell you're not!" Sam said, this time grabbing Castiel by the collar.

"Samuel!" Uriel exclaimed, biting back his warning when Castiel tossed him a warning glare.

"Resurrection and death," Castiel said, "Are both equally let if it is by design."

"'_God works in mysterious ways?'_" Sam mocked, laugh-sobbing now, "You _dare_ say this now? To me? My brother was taken on your watch, dying from fighting your damn war and you expect me to... to..." he sputtered off. Did they dare expect him to understand, and accept? Did they dare? Did they dare to think he could rise above the anger and the pain and just the blinding rage and loss that was consuming? Who the hell were they to ask that of him? Who the hell were they?

"You have _no _right," Sam seethed, "You have no right!"

He pushed Castiel away, and went back to his brother's side, lowering his face to Dean's. His voice and tone lowered and softened, _schizophrenic_..."Come on bro. Come on, Dean. Come on... wake up. We'll show this bastards how it's done, huh? We'll.. we'll show 'em..." his face crumbled, and his voice faltered. He was a damned sideshow, but he cried freely, because hopelessness was just a ghost, latched to his back, creeping in, and it was getting really damn cold.

"He can't hear me," Sam gasped, "He can't hear me. I can... I can bring him back. I can bring him back if he could just hear me."

Castiel crouched in front of him.

"Cas, please," Sam begged, "Let him hear me. I won't ask you for anything else. I can bring him back if he can hear me. I can bring him back myself."

"Do him one better, Sam," Castiel murmured, placing one hand on the side of Dean's face and the other on Sam's forehead, "Take him home."

"It's the same," Sam said, booking no arguments, staring the angel cold in the eye.

The world faded.

" " "

_2001, _2009

" " "

He went from feeling absolutely devastated to feeling like he was on top of the world. It was a disconcerting feeling, but suddenly, he was a teenager again, leaning out the window of the Impala and howling at the wind and the wide open road.

He knew exactly where he was.

This was the day he told Dean he got into Stanford on a free ride. But self-awareness and the future that would happen to them years later faded away, and suddenly he had shaken free completely of 2009, _it was gone, and he could feel the air run through his hair like gentle fingers. He opened his arms up to the sky, feeling like the world was his._

_He heard Dean chuckle at him from inside the car and he felt one of his brother's firm hands reach for his jacket and reel him back in the car._

_"Easy there," Dean said, "Wouldn't want you to fall out now that you're gonna be the meal ticket."_

_Sam let himself be reeled back in the car. But as he settled in his seat, _he felt himself being pulled further, and suddenly he was on the backseat of the car, breathless, wrenched from his past, wrenched from his teenage-self and all his hopes and dreams of a future that was never going to be.

It was 2009 again, and he was in the back of the Impala, watching his and his brother's past selves, bantering on the front seats.

_Young Sam beamed at Young Dean as he settled back down in his seat._

"That's how I feel, except I'm cooler about it."

Sam's head shot up to the seat beside him, and suddenly Dean was there, all of him, crinkling, shining eyes and all.

"Dean," Sam said, voice shaking, and if he wasn't so stunned he'd have bulldozed his brother into a hug.

"Heya, Sammy," Dean said, smiling as he watched their younger selves on the front seat.

_Young Sam's glistening eyes dimmed a little as he said, "There was a part of me that knew for sure you'd be pissed off at me instead."_

_Young Dean paused, and changed the subject altogether. "You know when I knew exactly how smart you were?"_

"What are you doing here, Dean?" Sam asked, "I got to you, you're safe now. All we gotta do is go back."

"They took m'eyes, Sammy."

"I know but we'll figure something out."

Dean snorted, and looked at Sam. "Hey, man. I'm uh... I'm not gonna pussy-foot around this anymore, all right?"

"Chick flick moment?" Sam joked, desperately, not wanting to talk about _this_...

"Take it like a man, bitch," Dean grinned.

"What?" Sam snapped, suddenly quite angry, "What, you're just gonna die, is that it? You're just gonna roll up and die? Scared to be blind and deaf? You're just gonna give up, take the easy way out?"

"Believe me Sam," Dean said quietly, eyes earnest and searching, "This ain't easy."

Sam was going to argue it out, but he stared at his brother's face, and knew for sure that it wasn't. Just like it hadn't been for him, when he left his family to face the future on his own.

"I've been tired for awhile," Dean admitted quietly, "I'm brain-fucked, you know. Blind and deaf and all I have is that mess in my head. Tell you something though, blind and deaf I'd still go back if you needed me."

"I need you--"

"No, Sam," Dean insisted, "Please, man. I need you to think about this, all right? But more than that, I need you to be fair to me. Blind and deaf, you know I'll go back if you needed me, right?"

Sam's eyes watered, as he stared at his brother. _Damn right_ he knew. If Sam needed help, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dean would come back to the land of the living, even if he had lost both arms and both legs out there. Sam nodded shortly, not quite finding his voice.

"Good," Dean said with a satisfied nod, looking back at their young selves again, "Good."

_"Do _you_ mind?" Young Sam asked, quietly._

_"Does it matter?" Young Dean asked back; it was a genuine question with no venom._

_"Matter...?" Young Sam inquired._

_"Can it change things?" Young Dean clarified, "And I don't think so."_

_"So you mind," Young Sam concluded._

_"How can't I?"_

"I'm really sorry, Sammy," Dean said, "But I'm thinking this is the end of the line for me. And I feel good, you know. For the first time in a long time. I don't know how, I don't know why anyone would wanna save anyone like me. Maybe it's heaven. Or I'm crazy. Or if I'm gonna end up seeing mom and dad. But it feels right, you know? When we ask these crazy-ass spirits to go to the light, and they kind of just know where they're supposed to go? It's like that. Coming back and I'm gonna be like a ghost. My body's a trainwreck. You don't even wanna get started with m'head."

"I'll take care of you."

"I know," Dean shrugged, "But that's not my life. And it's not the life I want for you either."

"I got no life," Sam said, "There's hunting and there's you."

"You don't have to be a hunter."

"I can't remember how to be anything else," Sam admitted, "I finally got Lilith, did you know? I don't know what to do now. And what do you mean I don't have to hunt? What happened to all that 'helping people, the family business' stuff?"

"That was me trying to help you with Jessica," Dean said, "That was dad trying to make sure his family's safe by killing the demon who got mom. If you think about it, all the things that got us here have less to do about helping people and more to do with being a family, you know. _Normal_ stuff, in a fucked up way. You don't have to be a hunter to help people, Sam. You can go back to school, or do that volunteer things you did in Africa. Or you can be a dentist, even. Whatever you want. Some of the best people out there? They're moms, man, moms and dads and doctors and teachers and," he added with emphasis, "L_awyers."_

_Brothers_, Sam filled in, realizing that he had never, _ever _thought of his brother as a hunter first and a brother second. Dean was always the older brother, and the very best of him was from that part.

"You always know how to find me," Sam murmured, remembering one of those traits, "I could never figure out how you do that. Like that time, when I was in school... I could never figure it out."

"I got a neat trick."

"Yeah?"

"You don't have to bust your ass looking for something," Dean said with a smirk, "If you hang on tight and never lose it."

"Right," Sam said, smiling sadly.

"You'll be great, Sammy," Dean said, and Sam noted, he didn't say _You're gonna be fine_. You'll be _great_...

"And me?" Dean said, "I feel like I can fly."

"Not too high," Sam murmured.

_"Not too high, bro," Young Dean advised his brother, "I mean, try not to forget us little people."_

_"Well you _are_ little--" Young Sam was saying, but his voice drifted off, and he turned around suddenly to look at the backseat of the car._

Sam felt his blood run cold, his eyes meeting the steady gaze of his younger self. He held his breath, not wanting to move, not wanting to shake the world anymore than he already might have by being here. It was a hell of a thing to have to do, but he understood why he was here. This was Dean asking him to let go, the same way Dean had let him live his life years ago, just grin and bore it. '_Wow, Sammy_' Dean kept on saying, and his pride in his younger brother's achievements were filling the car, overflowing, '_I'm happy for you_.'

_"I'm not little," Young Dean snapped, "It's just a visual illusion from standing next to a telephone pole all the time!"_

_Young Sam glanced back at Young Dean, and then at the backseat._

_"What?" Young Dean asked him._

_"Nothing," Young Sam said, shaking his head. He glanced at the rearview mirror, "Thought I heard something."_

"Huh," Dean said, "I almost forgot about that."

"I was pretty weird, huh?"

Dean just snorted.

Sam turned his attention away from the past, back to the present and the future...

"You gotta go, Sammy," Dean said softly, ruining the moment (or making it perfect, depending on one's perspective) by curbing the sentimentality with a wicked grin, "I'd hug you but we're on the backseat, so that's kinda weird."

"Take it like a man," Sam said, voice breaking as he manhandled his slightly smaller brother and pulled him close, just squeezing all the life out of him, everything he could possibly get.

Dean laughed, held on just as tight. When they pulled away from each other, Dean had messed up splatters of tears on his green gaze, but he beamed at Sam. It was a huge damn grin, that's what it was, and there was something almost angelic about how Dean looked; the beatific smile, shining eyes, the glow of the sun on his skin.

He really did look like he could fly.

Sam couldn't help but be a little bit sad about it, the same way Dean couldn't help but be a lot happy about it. It was just one of those things.

**To be concluded in an upcoming Epilogue, which will be posted with an Afterword and the preview of my new project, _Open, Shut_. Thanks for reading and 'til the next post!!!!**


	5. Epilogue,Afterword & Preview: Open, Shut

Author:Mirrordance

Title: **Steps Behind**

Summary:56 seals down, 10 left to open. It's 2009, and Lucifer's standing on the welcome mat. At the eve of the final battle in a losing war, the Winchesters make their last goodbyes, and at this end of days, Dean is finally learning to let Sam go.

**Hi gang!**

Thanks for sticking with me throughout _Steps Behind_. This chapter ends this story, and as always, this chapter also contains my **Afterword** for the method of the madness, and **Previews of the new fics** I'm working on. Thanks again, you guys are the best, and c&c's welcome as always!

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**Epilogue**

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2009

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The sound was small but crisp, very precise. _Tink, tink, tink_, the lighter went, as Sam flipped it on and out and on and out again. It was theoretically negligible, but somehow loud in the glaringly quiet room. It was hypnotic, but not comforting on any level.

He clenched the small, silver lighter tightly, and then slapped it against the side table of the battered couch he was sitting on. He took a deep breath and leaned back.

Bobby's couch never felt quite so alien before, but he felt uncomfortably detached from everything anyway. The lumpy couch didn't mold to his body the way it used to. Old clothes he's always worn didn't feel right, the sun was too bright, even if he felt that he was looking at everything through a screen.

He glanced, lazily, at the door that led to the kitchen. Bobby was making quiet noises of his own; standard grunting complaints about his old bones, clinking glasses from raiding his refrigerator on that perpetual hunt for beer, scuffling feet on weathered wood.

Sam tilted his head back and closed his eyes, feeling exhausted. He drifted, and suddenly Bobby was in the room, regarding him thoughtfully.

"You should stretch out," Bobby said, "Sleep properly or something."

"Nah," Sam said, "I gotta go soon anyway."

It was a lie, something they've both been telling each other since driving up to the Singer Yard a few days ago from New York. They couldn't seem to rid themselves of the other's company, not since Dean died.

_Sam remembered the sensation of just... being wrenched and shoved back into his body. It was like waking up again after having been dead for days. It was an inexplicable feeling of just being soul-rushed like a wave crashing, the water going _everywhere_._

_He gasped, and he was back on his knees beside his brother in that warehouse in that goddamn town, and Castiel was still crouched in front of him as if no time had passed at all. If someone had said so, he'd have believed it because everything looked the same except... he looked down at his brother and knew for certain that Dean wasn't in there anymore._

_It was a kick in the gut, all the air just leaving the body. Dizzying, too fast, too harsh, too... _emptying_._

_He started sobbing in earnest as he picked up his older brother by the shoulders and just held him close. He buried his head on Dean's shoulder because that space was his, made just for him. The angles fit perfectly, like a jigsaw puzzle._

_He pressed his face close, looking for the escape of delusion; but the way Dean's head lolled back, unable to be captured by his embrace, limbless, was another punch in the stomach and he thought he was going to be ill._

_Dean's body was empty, and so was he._

_There was nothing else around him. Nothing else and no one else, even as he knew that life was moving on. It was cruel, how things moved on right away after someone passes. Time ticking, and footsteps moving, and rustling clothes, and tears falling to the ground. How could life move on just like that,not missing a beat, as if it lost nothing important? Didn't they know? Didn't they know? Shouldn't time stop, even for just a little bit?_

_There was no sympathy he could tolerate. He glared at those who dared try to say they were sorry, or to offer comfort, or even to offer help. He didn't want anything from anybody. The only persons he could stand were those who offered him nothing, those who roughly shared his loss, his level of suffering._

_This was Castiel remaining where he was, crouched in front of Sam and his face an uncharacteristically mottled mess of uncertainties, because things stopped making sense again. Bobby Singer soon ran in and sat with them. Weathered hands flailing, not knowing where to go. Mouth moving soundlessly, just robbed of words._

_It was almost like the three of them had every intention of stopping time. _

_Life had to stay still and be quiet, even for just a little bit, because it lost someone important. Sam held Dean, and that was all he did. Castiel stayed crouched before them, quiet and unmoving, just watching, wondering about life and death and how it was disconcertingly sad that he wouldn't get to say '_You gave us a scare, we almost lost you there.'_ Bobby... Well to Sam's eye, that was the first time he ever thought of the hunter as old._

The first time they buried Dean in '08, Sam had washed his body and stitched the wounds inflicted on him by the hounds of hell. He painstakingly picked the most comfortable clothes for Dean, and then shakily placed a lighter in his curling, death-stiffened hand. Dean would need the light after he comes to inside his shallow grave when Sam gets him back. It was also a symbol of Sam '_keeping the light on_,' so to speak; he wasn't giving up hope that he could still save his brother.

Said lighter was now on Bobby Singer's side table, looking forlorn. After they cremated Dean, got coma-drunk, and then alternately drove the Impala across states, through a hangover, with a macabre jar of ashes between them to come 'home,' he had looked through Dean's things and found it. He hasn't let go since, imagining his older brother's calloused hands wound around the silver lighter. He wasn't sure if Dean knew what it meant to Sam, but it was kept in a safe place, and Dean had never used it on their standard salt and burns, so _maybe_. Sam liked to think so, at any rate.

"Any news from New York?" Sam asked, clearing his throat.

"The clean-up is going all right," Bobby replied, "After we got rid of Lilith and Alastair, the rest of the demon party all pretty much shit themselves and went hiding. All's quiet now. The angels are rebuilding some of the seals up, and strengthening the others. Then you got people getting rid of all the lesser demons mulling around. Looks like the damn apocalypse has been staved off at least, for a good long while."

"Good," Sam murmured, "I was wondering if they needed us back there."

"You've given enough, Sam," Bobby told him quietly, "They got it covered. You gotta take care of yourself this time."

The younger hunter ran a hand over his face, wearily. He's forgotten what day it was and how long he's been here. "I'm gonna take off soon," he said again.

"To go where?" Bobby asked, calling out the bluff for the first time.

Sam blinked at him in surprise, "I was... was thinking of going on a road trip or something. Mom's... mom's grave. And dad's tags are there too."

His eyes watered again, reminded of how much of an orphan he was.

"I'm gonna figure out," he said, taking a deep breath and swallowing past the lump on his throat, "Gotta figure out what to put of Dean's, there. You know. Something I can stand to loose," he said, chuckling mirthlessly, " And... and where the ashes get to go."

"You want some company?"

"Nah," Sam said, after an honest moment of thought "I gotta... gotta sort my head out, about all this. I'm not... not running away to do something crazy like the last time, Bobby, I promise."

"How can I be sure--"

"I can't take him away from where he's at," Sam said, "He's... he looked... he looked just _relieved_, Bobby. Haven't seen him look like that in a long time, he looked like a kid. I never thought of Dean as a kid, e_ver_. Big-brothers, I guess. I can't stomach the idea of taking him from wherever he is that makes him so happy. I can't stomach being here on my own either, though. It's always been a zero-sum between him and me I guess. Someone has to leave, someone has to stay, someone has to be happy, the other sad. But I can't do that to him, I can't take him from there and drag him back here-- blind, deaf and stuck in his head and his nightmares-- just because I'm sad. I just... I gotta sort out what I'm gonna do with myself."

"Well you know where I'll be."

"I know," Sam said, sincerely. In afterthought, he added, "Unless you need me around. Dean said... I kinda got an earful from him, the last time he... well. He said you had a hell of a time yourself, and I just ran off."

"You had a right to go a little bit insane after he died," Bobby said, and '_died_' made them both wince, "And I had a right to drink a little bit."

"His term was '_liquor store_,'" Sam said, mildly.

Bobby just shrugged, "Well if you don't get to go crazy this time around, then I don't get to have a house party. It's kinda sick, but by round two I guess you're supposed to do a better job of things."

"I guess," Sam murmured.

"What are you gonna do now?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted, "Dean said... he said I don't have to be hunter."

"That's true," Bobby affirmed, "Why don't you go back to school?"

"Can't go back to being who I was," Sam mumbled.

"You don't have to be, to go back to where you were," Bobby said, "Maybe you're even better now."

"Nah," Sam said, shaking his head, "I'm rusty."

"With the work?" Bobby frowned, skeptical, "I don't think so."

"No," Sam said, "With... with people. And with just sleeping at night, and just sitting down to read things, to listen to teachers, to be bored sometimes, to go out... I'm just... _rusty_."

_At being a person..._

"Better rusty than rotted," Bobby said, "Get back out there, kid. That's life, no one's rusty for too long. Go see what you can do. You got time, now."

_I do_, Sam thought, glumly. That was kind of the sad part.

" " "

Castiel came to see him the night before he was set to leave the Singer Yard.

One moment he was sure he was dead-asleep on Bobby's couch and the next, the angel was sitting on the armrest where his feet were, back to him, shoulders slumped.

"Hello, Sam."

Sam stared at Castiel's back for a long moment, before carefully sitting up. The last time he had seen the angel was after they burned Dean's body a couple of days ago.

"What," Sam said, "You have a job for me or something?"

"No," came the casual, dismissive reply. He was here for something else, apparently, and Castiel turned to face him then, regarding him carefully. "You used to pray a lot."

"Lodging a complaint?" Sam snorted.

Castiel shrugged, "You would think, that one's prayers would be reinforced upon confirmation of the existence of a being who truly exists and watches over you."

"Maybe not-knowing was better," Sam said softly, looking away, "Now that I know He's around, and that He can hear me, but does-- how can anyone... never mind. You know, you're not going to answer. No one is. So it doesn't matter."

"How can anyone let these things happen," Castiel filled in, "You are right. I do not have the answer."

"Most prayers go unanswered," Sam pointed out, "It's kind of like a fucked up relationship. I keep calling, she never picks up. The day I stop she wonders why. It makes no sense, and it's tiring. Why pray, why ask for anything? He'll do whatever he wants anyway."

"Some prayers are answered," Castiel insisted.

"I generally don't care about prayers that aren't mine."

"Your brother was the answer to mine," Castiel said.

"_Jesus_," Sam whispered, pinching at the bridge of his nose, frustrated because Castiel just seemed to know the damn buttons to push.

"He was the answer to many others'," Castiel said, "Losing him makes you doubt, and yet it restores the faith of many."

"So what," Sam snapped, "Too bad, so sad?"

"Maybe yours will be restored too, one day," Castiel said, "Why are you angry with me?"

_You woke me_ was the initial sarcastic remark that came to mind, and it reminded Sam that Dean had mostly raised him. The memory was softening; Dean's loss was not Castiel's fault, and Dean had liked the angel so maybe he could be more civil.

"I'm not," Sam sighed, "I'm just... I'm just kinda winded, you know. A little bit bent. How can't I be?"

The anger bled out of him, making him feel emptied again. _Exhausted_. He jumped at the anger and it had been welcome because it filled a void that was now just making itself known again. The only ways he'd ever been able to weather loss before this was by anger and purpose, just like his father had. But this time around... in place of anger was an understanding that Dean had died doing something good, and that he was now in a good place, and that the job was done, and that there was no one left to kill. And Castiel was right... it was comforting to think of his brother being the answer to someone's prayer. Still... that didn't make the hurt any less. All he had was an empty life to keep on living. He wished he could be angry instead of understanding,... of being this shell, and a passive cooperator to letting go.

"I've been thinking too," Sam added, "If I could just have gotten to him sooner. All the times I promised him I could save him, I mucked it up. First time was in Nebraska, brought him to a faith healer. Unknowingly leased up someone's life to save my brother's then. And then I couldn't save him from dying in a hospital after a car crash, dad had to give up his soul. And I couldn't save him from the hell hounds, and I couldn't save him from hell, and then I didn't get to him on time this time too." He laughed, bitterly, "I suck. And I promised I'd get to him. I promised, and he was counting on me. I suck."

"He certainly didn't think so," Castiel said, "He told me that as long as he phrased it like a job, you will move forward with your mission and _no one's going to be better_."

"Well he's an idiot," Sam said, after a long moment.

"He doesn't blame you, Sam."

"Doesn't?" Sam asked, head shooting up and eyes alight, "Present-tense. Have you... have you seen him, talked to him? Where is he? How is he?"

"I haven't," Castiel said, "But I know that for a fact."

"But will you?" Sam asked earnestly, "See him, I mean? I mean... he said he felt like he could fly. He felt good, he felt... like he could see our mom and dad. Is that... is that heaven? I mean I have to ask, 'cos I let him go, and I just want to make sure, you know, that he goes to the right place? Because he used to doubt, used to be scared that he'd never be forgiven."

"I told Dean before," Castiel said, "That there is no imagining my Father's capacity to love, to give, to forgive, especially those who loved and gave as freely, and those who sought remorse. He is well where he is. When I told you to see him home, I meant what I said."

"Good," Sam said, quietly, "Good."

"There is..." Castiel said, peering closely at him, "Something else on your mind."

"It's nothing."

The angel sat and stared like he had all the time in the world, looking unflappably expectant. Sam rolled back his eyes and indulged him.

"Lilith said I was headed to hell," Sam said, "Because of my powers. Can... can bad things be made good, by what we do with it?"

"When you were told you walked a thin line on a slippery slope," Castiel said, "They weren't lying. But the good cannot be discounted. You just have to be careful."

"I just wanted to be sure," Sam said, with a tight, ironic smile, "Because I think I've found out the biggest motivator to walking the straight and the narrow. If I ever want to see my family again, if I ever want to see my brother again, I'm going to have to be a nice guy or something, otherwise you guys'll never let me in the gates. I bet that's not what you had in mind when you told Dean '_Stop him, or we will_.'"

Castiel smirked a little bit too.

"I didn't think so," Sam said, quietly.

"I should be leaving soon," Castiel said, "This vessel, this world. My work is done."

"Long road for you too, I guess," Sam said.

"Indeed," Castiel said, rising to his feet and drawing his hand out to shake Sam's, "It was an honor to have stood with you and your brother, Sam. I truly mean that."

Sam shook the angel's hand tightly, "Thanks, Cas. Tell Dean... that is, when you see him..." he racked his brains, but then just smiled to himself, "You know what, never mind."

"Why is that?"

"It doesn't matter," Sam said, wistfully, "I was gonna say to tell him I'm fine, he doesn't have to worry about me. I'm gonna be _great_, just as he said, after I figure things out. I'll make him proud. But you don't have to tell him anything. He'll know. He always knows. And if I'm not good? He'll always know how to find me anyway."

**The End**

February 9, 2009

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**Afterword**

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**

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****Contents**

**I. Reservations on Posting **_**Steps Behind**_

**A. The Tragedy**

**B. Interpretation of Faith and the Church**

**C. The Inevitable Torture**

**II. The Time-Looping Style of **_**Steps Behind**_

**III. The Characters**

**A. The Winchester Brothers**

**B. Castiel and the Angels**

**C. Ruby**

**D. Bobby**

**E. Alastair**

**F. Lilith**

**IV. Massive Thanks and Replies**

**V. The Next Project/s: **_**Open, Shut **_**Preview**

**

* * *

**

**I. Reservations on Posting **_**Steps Behind**_

**A. The Tragedy**

Okay, this damned ending, haha. I was clear from the very start of the story that it was going to be a tragedy and this is why: basically, when I write stories I get inspired by scenes and lines that I build a story around just so I can get to that scene or line. In _Steps Behind_, that line would be when Castiel tells Sam to do Dean better and take him _home_, instead of bringing him back. Since the fic was born out of a scene where Dean dies, I couldn't let it go after I started it. It's a handicap of course, haha, especially since I knew I was going to lose readers to that simple fact.

Another reason is that I think I was reaching a point where I felt that knocking Dean out of his misery by having him kick the bucket is almost merciful... I don't know why I've been inexplicably growing sorry for this character in the last few epi's... does that make any sense and does anyone feel the same way? :) I mean the hell-thing was bad enough, but the real kicker for me lately was that _Sex and Violence_ thing, to be told he was both weak and a burden was harsh in many ways: first, to hear this from the very person you gave up everything for and second, he's only started opening up about how he feels about things and suddenly he's sorry for himself all the time. It just stung on many levels, and really denting.

You can also choose to think of Dean's sacrifice as his pay-off for the things he did in Hell; it's hard to imagine how they would depict his redemption in the series, but I guess this is my effort at trying to figure it out :)

Also, whenever I wavered, Pearl Jam's _Last Kiss_ buffered up my guts in continuing the tragic ending. One of the lines of that song is that the protagonist is saying he should live life as a good person so that he could be with the ones that he loves when he dies. I think that's an excellent motivator for a practical guy like Sam to behave, going back to Dean saving him again, haha, a reasoning he invokes in the epilogue with Castiel.

So in short, while angst is always rewarding just because it's angst, the tragic ending is also firmly entrenched in my reasoning and consequently irredeemable haha.

**B. Interpretation of Faith and the Church**

I had some apprehensions about my depiction of the Church as borderline conspiracy-theorist in terms of its wealth and power. I guess it's pretty plain that the one I'm referring to in this fic is the conventional-perspective of the very wealthy and powerful Roman Catholic one. And for those who are familiar with my other theology-slanted fic _Tightrope_, Roman Catholicism is staunchly in my background and it's a topic I enjoy writing about. The philosophy is pretty layered in this religion, and _Steps Behind _asked "Why does God let evil things happen?" in a lot of ways, didn't it? Of course, if I could answer that, I'd be a gazillionaire, haha, so _Steps Behind_ doesn't contain the answer, although it does the philosophical thing and just keeps asking, haha! Seriously though... the most I could postulate is what Dean said to Dolores in _Chapter 3: Wait_: that you have to believe you're worth a lot, and that there are some things worth your life. I really do love Arthur C Clarke's _The Star_, and it really raises the question about a god-figure's grand designs, and the things that get bulldozed along the way.

I was also scared that the operations side of this war would seem implausible. I mean, I'm pretty sure the RC church owns a number of buildings in Manhattan, haha, but the ambitious ala-_Alias_ set-up in _Steps Behind_ felt like a stretch. I figured though, that no matter what your faith affiliation is, anyone would appreciate that if something like Lucifer and the seals is going on, you'd want your church to be ready and fighting and have your back in that efficient way, haha :)

Speaking of efficiency... I also hope the angels' willingness to use Sam's powers toward their own objectives does not seem to heavily questionable. I tried to address it within the fic with Castiel telling Sam that he just has to work with caution, and that they've been willing to sacrifice entire civilizations before, so he was willing to do what he needed to do. If this sounds scarily like the ends justifying the means... well that's something I'm pretty sure the Church wouldn't be standing for; and yet personally it didn't feel wrong to me, so I hope you thought the strategy made sense too, haha :)

Another apprehension is in one of the main operational theses of the battle-scenes in _Steps Behind_: basically, the fic postulates that power-stuff belong to the angels and the demons, but material stuff and dirty things were human expertise. I liked the idea that if the war was on our turf, we had to have a contribution and even better, a unique strength as humans too. I think one of the driving forces of the Dean-character is that human-ness, particularly, so I guess that's why it had to have a place in _Steps Behind_ as well.

Finally, I sincerely hope that the religious angle is not a turn-off; it's not written to promote my personal faith or to exclude those who do not share it. _Steps Behind_ just has a plot that I felt would be enriched by philosophical discussions on religion.

**C. The Inevitable Torture**

I'm sure you could tell that I'm an uneasy writer of visceral scenes. I'm not great at describing bodily hurt, so to emphasize the 'torture' aspect of this fic, instead of concentrating on volume and intensity of inflicting physical pain, what I did was to use one of the most 'inviolable' tortures in this fandom. This means I had to dent Dean's face, haha... seriously though... I wanted to do the unconventional and unacceptable, because I wanted the torture to feel uncomfortable and upsetting for the reader. I wanted it to feel like an irrecoverable mess, which is a fraction of what Sam would have felt. Honestly speaking, this fandom has done _a lot_ to the brothers Winchester, but I don't think there's a whole lot that dented them in horrifying, irrevocable ways. The face is so sacred, really (especially if you're that good looking, haha), so it felt just supremely offensive to cut it up like that.

**II. The Time-Looping Style of **_**Steps Behind**_

I've said it before and I'll say it again, haha... when I write, I like the idea of the medium being the message, as it adds to the dimensions of a story. What this means is that if I want the characters to feel that time is confusing, I want the reader of the story to share that torn feeling. That's why _Steps Behind_ dances from one timeline to another, with trigger words in the present always leading up to a related memory from the past.

I actually had a great time playing with time in this story. Time-travel is so mind-blowing to me, it's so ridiculously layered a concept. One of my favorite efforts to tackle this idea is locked up in a line from the impossibly-average movie _Kate and Leopold_. In it, they mentioned something about efforts at time-traveling and toggling with the past as all part of the future. I forget the exact line, but they said something about trying to loop around with time when it's already a pretzel. That perspective of time is why _Steps Behind_ kind of ended with the beginning, with the Winchester brothers in the car and Sam having to tell Dean he was going away, and Sam sensing that someone was in the backseat, not knowing it was him and Dean of the future. When I first posted Chapter 1, I wondered if any of the reviewers would ask what Sam heard and sensed from the backseat, haha... no one did, but I do hope the importance of the nuance is emphasized now.

**III. The Characters**

**A. The Winchesters**

Essentially,_ Steps Behind_ is a coming-of-age story. Granted, the boys are a little too old to be coming of age at this point, haha, but that's how I looked at this story fundamentally. Basically, that entails a lot of changes that either inspires growth in the characters, or allows them to discover something very defining about themselves.

For both brothers, one of these would be them allowing themselves to be separated for an assignment. Is this uncharacteristic? Maybe, haha, but I tried to address this in the first chapter, when Dean tells Sam that life had become too short not to do the right thing anymore. Corollary to this is their ability to now let each other go. When I think of their relationship, the idea of them dying for each other in a vicious cycle is shared by a lot of fans. I guess I just really wanted to write a story that somehow makes it acceptable to break that, and show that when one of them dies or goes away, they're still not alone. The title of this fic was actually inspired by Def Leppard's _Two Steps Behind_. Kinda old school, but this band is still awesome in my book, and I loved the lyrics in that it says something like 'Walk away if you want to,' but that the person who loves you won't be far behind you. Dean letting go of Sam to me (both for Stanford and in death), is a lot like that :)

Another source of growth would be the reversal in the brotherly command structure. In the earlier seasons, it really had been a bossier Dean (off the top of my head I can remember him just making quick, strategic decisions and ordering Sam around in _Faith_, _Wendigo_, _Route 666_, _Crosrroad Blues_, _Bedtime Stories_, _Fresh Blood, _etc.) In this fic, I wanted to show that more assertive Season 4 side of Sam, which I really, really like, the same way I like that Dean is learning to step back a little.

_Steps Behind_ also raises two separate questions regarding these characters: 1. How can someone like Dean be saved? Did his sacrifice save him? Did he want to die? And 2. Do his powers really make Sam 'evil?' I really had a hard time with these two things.

Regarding Dean, as a total fangirl, it's already a bitter pill to hear that he tortured souls, and then it was a kick in the head to hear he enjoyed it. Alastair's monologue here actually reflects my own sentiments: "_If you lost it, you wouldn't be back here, still feeling like yourself. You'd be someone else entirely, someone brutal and unforgiving and indiscriminate and bloodthirsty, molded by your time in Hell. But you're not. You're not crazy. You're still you. You know what that means? That means that you own the acts that you did._" His enjoyment of others' torture was hard to reconcile with the hero that we loved. I had no answer, really... which is why I had to include an epilogue where Sam was asking if Castiel was sure that Dean was saved. The best answer that I could think is what Castiel tells Sam in that conversation, that god's capacity for forgiveness, love and generosity can be boundless. As for his attitude toward his death... I think my depiction of that in _Steps Behind_ is a kind-of peace about that constant possibility since the war started. A recurring theme of the story after all, if you've noticed, is people resolving to do things better the second time around. When he told Castiel midway through the fic that he wasn't thinking about redemption, he really was just thinking about what was the right thing to do, that's really my stance on this. Of course, the desire to sacrifice oneself and atone for mistakes is also highly, highly possible and a very accessible sort of feeling for Dean in _Steps Behind_; he just wasn't seeking it out actively.

As for Sam... I am perfectly onboard with his idea that he can 'purify' his evil powers by doing good, but this is, again, tempered by the angelic advice he receives in the end to use it with caution.

**B. Castiel and the Angels**

The angels had a fairly small part here; you know a character isn't very defined or large if you can just switch around the names and the story would still make sense. Except for Castiel, this is the role of the angels in _Steps Behind_ primarily because I already felt like I was hefting around a heavy storyline and didn't want to confuse myself. I just hope that these smaller characters contributed to the story-telling.

As to the matter of Castiel... I think his depiction here is pretty standard; disciplined, reasonable, wistful... it might be the sense of humor that's questionable, haha. I think you'll find that this is a dry streak I like putting in the character when I depict him. But like I wrote in _Underworld/For Perdition_, Castiel said something like God equips him with what he needs, and in dealing with Dean, a good guardian angel definitely needs a sense of humor. I didn't find anything too overboard with depicting that mild sense of humor and depicting some vulnerability with regard to his beliefs in _Steps Behind_. I hope the portrayal was fair, because the fandom hasn't had this great a reception for a new character since Uncle Bobby haha :)

**C. Ruby**

Here we are again with the ever-tricky Ruby situation, haha... I guess those who have read my other fics have an understanding that I have an open mind about this character, and _Steps Behind_ is also illustrative of that. I honestly don't mind her. I think the concept of a character like her is excellent, it was just the execution in the series that was a little tricky. By this, I mean that I not only have a renewed appreciation for Katie Cassidy, I sincerely miss her depiction of the character too, haha. Anyway, as she relates to _Steps Behind_... maybe the series will give firmer reasons for her dedication to Sam, but in the meantime, I hope her depiction in my fic is both fair and believable. She's not such a huge part of it, of course, but her conversation with Dean was my own attempt to understand why she's sort-of good: she doesn't believe in her personal salvation, so she just tries to evade hell by staying on Earth and keeping hell from overtaking it. Incidentally she falls for Sam which, haha, I'm sure is very believable to us fans of the show :) Anytime I use this character prominently, as in _Home Road_, I hesitate about how intrusive people would feel she is, and I just hope I depicted her fairly for fans of the character, and depicted her relevantly to those who are not.

**D. Bobby**

I've said it before and I'll say it again, haha... put 'Uncle Bobby' in anywhere and he's like, the fanfiction panacea – he can make anything all right, haha. Seriously though, his role here is quite limited, but I just. could. not. leave him out! I was actually initially tempted to give him a larger role, and had even already started a (now completely scrapped) goodbye scene between him and the boys. But the story already felt 'crowded' to me; I didn't want to dilute the brotherly dynamic. Still, as I said, I just had to have him in the story, haha. My next one, _Open Shut_ will feature him prominently :)

**E. Alastair**

I am, of course, not yet well-versed on this character who is actually quite frankly still on the developing side in terms of how much we've seen of him in the series. I think you can tell that I had some fun with him here though, haha. The philosophical torturer... I was trying to figure out what kind of archetype to depict him as, and I decided on an afficionado of torture; someone who appreciates it as art, who is knowledgeable of its history. I didn't paint him out as diabolical at all, just someone who enjoys and is very good at his job. Which is kinda sick, haha, but for lack of an expansion from canon about this guy at present, I had to just figure it out myself :)

**F. Lilith**

Not much to say, really, as unfortunately this character hasn't really captured my imagine very vividly. I think it reflects here too, unfortunately, but anyway, in terms of her depiction in _Steps Behind_, I think it was pretty conventionally drawn.

**IV. Massive Thanks and Replies**

I would like to thank all those who read, alerted, favorited, and most especially all who reviewed _Steps Behind_. I really worked faster after your thoughts and feelings started to come in, so thank you very, very much for the fuel. As per always, I'm writing down my thanks by name, and also raising some interesting review points that other readers might be interested to note. If I missed thanking you, please do not hesitate to call me out and I will happily make the changes, since everyone deserves their proper shout-out :)

**Thanks to reviewers**: Aimi kin, Anahni, annie 200, anonymous, apieceofcake, Batman's Beauty18, bhoney, Cbloom2, cheetahluke, cynistermommy, Dark Austral, ecat, Eeyore08, Galahdsgurl, Gadget Girl 25, Jamieykay, J.E. Apple, Jusmine, kalen241, Krimson, Mandy!, Maz101, MkofGod, Mish, mtee1958, neonchica, singerfan, Sirnonenath, staceycj, Tari Roo, TopazGirl86, tvfreak2201, winchesterfan, winky79, and Zubeneschamali.

**Also to:**

anon: I was absolutely floored by your review re: the story as feeling both part of canon and comparable to the show. Bumping little ol' _Steps Behind_ next to the sheer loveliness that is _Supernatural_ absolutely made me glow. Thank you for reading and the generous review.

cozmikfaerie:Thank you for the ultimately humbling review. I am happy that I got you involved, especially when you said that you looked at your own faith, which (I think you can tell by now, haha) is something very important to me.

Cynthia: Anytime I can get anyone to delurk makes me unbelievably happy. Thank you for following my work and for dropping me a line, much appreciated.

deangirl1: I found your review very perceptive, when you mentioned that Dean has more in his head than given credit for. I think that's a very accurate assessment of the character. He couldn't be doing what he does and carelessly spouting pop culture nuggets without having some considerable brain power after all :)

ladie red: Sigh! You're absolutely right about the budgetary constraints of our favorite show, haha. It's like the little-show-that-could, if you know what I mean, haha...

masondixon: I am especially grateful to you for sticking around despite your aversion to the tragedy genre by virtue of the ppl you have recently lost. Thank you for taking this leap with me and trusting me to deliver something worthwhile from a genre you don't ordinarily read. I sincerely hope that I still managed to give you some joy somehow.

Miyo86: Thank you for your commentary on the discussions on God and faith. This is really something that I enjoy tackling in my stories (I'm sure you can tell by now, haha)

Phoebe: When I marveled with your perception before, and said that I had a feeling we occasionally thought alike, I really meant it, haha... the 'interesting things for Sam to do in college,' you mentioned is actually going to be one of my future projects as noted below, and when you said you liked the "_Take him home_" line, you might have noticed at the first part of this afterword that _Steps Behind_ was written just to get to that line. Finally... I'm not quite sure this tragedy bug is completely out of my system yet, but if I get my way, the next project should be slightly cheerier :)

Zatnikatel: Loved your musings on the 'human' side of Castiel, and the sheer creativity of evil. I told you this before but I'll say it again: your reviews are really great. Encouraging, well-thought-out... they're so great they even deserve a review, see? :) Thanks for taking the time :)

**V. The Next Projects**

I hinted in an Author's Note at the beginning of Chapter 3 that one of the flashbacks was a preview of a fic I'm working on. That one's entitled _**Heaven and Earth**_ and is just an interesting concept for me, but if you want a small idea of what it's about, the plot is as follows:

_**Sam may have given up the hunt in college, but not on doing other good things. He goes missing during peacebuilding fieldwork overseas. Dean gets on a plane because Dean may have given up on Sam ever returning to their family, but can't lose him either.**_

The other fic I'm working on is much more concrete and should be posted as soon as I get in the proper mindframe to devote more time to it (I'm a little over 20 pages in, I think, so I'm fairly committed haha). After _Underworld_, I wanted to place the boys in another impossible situation, so that's the main premise when I started writing the fic _Open, Shut_. A clip of this was also featured in Chapter 4 of _Steps Behind_, so the plot may sound familiar. Anyway, without further ado, a preview:

Author:Mirrordance

Title:**Open, Shut**

Summary:_**A street prophet foresees a natural disaster & the death of an entire town. He goes to the only people who would believe him: the Winchesters and Bobby Singer. It's an open and shut case, except the only solution is...how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Set Season 4.**_

" " "

**Open, Shut**

" " "

_**Preview**_

" " "

"It's like walking into _Paradiso Perduto_," Sam muttered, looking up at the looming, vine-plagued, rusted gates of the address Bobby provided.

"You sure we have the right place?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, craning his head to take a look beyond the wild grass and untamed foliage around the iron gates and beyond it. "I can see one of Bobby's cars parked somewhere in there."

Dean craned his neck too, and both brothers blanched at the sour sight of one of the weirder occupants of the Singer salvage yard. It was a compact, chick's car in scarred, faded matte-pink. Dean knew that Bobby had it tricked out to go insanely and enviably fast; it was the only way any right-thinking man could justify driving that piece of crap around, short of it having any superpowers, or if Bobby had gotten some action at the backseat from a Victoria's Secret angel.

"I wanna see you in that thing," Dean smirked at Sam.

Sam snorted at him, "I can't fit in there, I'm too tall. _You_ on the other hand..."

"Shut up," Dean muttered, as he pressed on the buzzer by the gate, not really expecting it to work until a surly voice retorted, "What?!"

"Looking for Bobby Singer and Paul Reade," Dean replied.

"I'll buzz you in," came the short reply, "You can drive up to the rotunda."

"You heard the man," Dean said, slipping back inside the driver's seat, Sam doing the same on the other side. The heavy gates whined, but opened inward. Dean drove the Impala up the cobblestone driveway, and glanced at the rearview mirror as the gates shut behind them.

"This place must have been something a couple years back," Sam said, glancing out the windows. Old, shady tress lined the two-lane, curving, cobblestone driveway, their thick roots creeping and cracking into the cement, like curling fingers reclaiming what once was theirs. The road was strewn with fallen branches and leaves, and the brothers drove past untamed gardens. The wild greenery surrounded a colonial home in an odd shade of mossy green-gray-white, just the sick color of neglect. The Impala rounded a fountain that looked like falling into it ensured dying of some exotic disease, and stopped at the main entrance.

Heavy, carved double-doors opened, and Bobby stepped out of the house, looking relatively immaculate despite the permanent sand and soil and oil that trailed after him, compared to his disheveled, slightly squat, fifty-plus-year-old companion.

Paul Reade looked like he was on the tail-end of a hangover. His already-lined face was screwed up in pained irritation, and his clear blue eyes were mostly hidden in a photo-phobic squint. They widened a little at the sight of the boys, but then re-settled when he frowned.

"You said you were bringing in help," he snapped at Bobby, "Not two kids."

"Overgrown ones, I promise ya," Bobby said, wryly, extending his hand out to shake the brothers' in warmer welcome, "Boys, this here's Paul Reade."

"I'm Sam," Sam said, "This is my brother Dean. Bobby said you needed some help."

"Not from you, get outta my house," Reade said, venomously, "Outta my damn town."

"What's with the attitude?" Dean asked, looking at Bobby.

"I don't know," Bobby admitted, turning to Reade, "Paul, what the hell?"

Reade stared at him, and then jerked his head in a shaky "Nothing. I'm being a jerk. Come on in, boys." He opened the doors wider, and then stalking inside ahead of his guests.

Sam glanced at Dean, and then at Bobby. "What's his problem?"

"He's hungover," Bobby said, "And spent a night in jail. He's a nice guy, I promise."

The three hunters stepped inside the mansion, and Dean gawked at the high-ceilinged, sunlit, marble hall. The entrance led to a massive lobby lorded over by two curving staircases meeting at the middle, and leading to rooms above. The lobby was lined by anterooms, and everything was lit by the sun streaming in from long, slim windows that let in both light and the view of the untamed gardens from outside. There were more windows than furniture, as a matter of fact, because the neglected house was empty save for the occasional, battered chair.

"You're squatting in your old house?" Dean asked, calling after Reade, who emerged from one of the side rooms with bottles of beer. He handed them around, and then kind of just... _plopped_ on the ground wherever he was standing.

"Please, sit," he said, motioning for the floor, almost graciously.

Dean and Sam exchanged a look, but did as they were invited to do.

"Tell us about this vision you had," Sam said, quietly, "Exactly what you saw, every single detail you can remember. I can guarantee you everything that your mind has shown you will matter, even the ones that you don't think mean anything."

"You guarantee?" Reade scoffed, "And how would you know?"

"I promised you help, Reade," Bobby said, mildly, before Dean could open his mouth in defense of his brother, "Just do as he says."

Reade took a fortifying gulp of his beer, before beginning. "Maybe I should get more of the heavier stuff."

"Later," Dean said, tone clipped, "Vision?"

"I don't usually see myself in them," Reade began, "It just looks and feels like it's real, like I'm already there. I remember standing by my door, right where you just entered. It was nighttime, I was just standing by my door. I do that sometimes, get some air. But this night, the air was just... thick, you know? Sick-carbony or something. Fucking toxic, like those wacky super-glues I used to work with, and it was sticky-warm. Just thick, stinky air. Something was going on, 'cos there was this tick-tick-ticking sound, small and crisp, and I could see worms and insects kind of just come out from the wood, you know, and they're all headed in the same direction. Even the birds taking to the sky, all of them headed in the same direction, against the wind, like they all knew something we didn't.

"The flapping of the wings," Reade continued, "That's what got me to look up to the skies. The moon was full, and then a massive plume of smoke just rose up to the sky, and made it black, and the moon - perfect, full, glowing- was just _gone_. The sky turned black, and then I heard the screaming, and the cars screeching and running, and the sirens.

"My house was far from everything," he went on, "But the air was bad. I was coughing. I thought maybe I should go back inside my house, so I did. And then suddenly, there was this... this white-hot blast, like Superman pushed me or something, sending me to the wall. The windows burst. Glass rained _everywhere_. But there were no more sounds, I could just see them. I thought I had just busted my ears. I think I blacked out, but I stepped outside a bit after that, and everything outside my house was just gone, you know? The tress, the ground. My gates were melted or something, and there were buildings and houses outside my property, but there was nothing. Just... this flat wasteland. And I was all alone. End of the world. It looked like _I Am Legend_. Did y'all see that?"

"When did you dream this up?" Dean asked.

"About a week ago," Reade replied.

"Have you ever had a dream like it before?" Sam asked.

"The last time I dreamed up something that made me feel like the fucking Earth was ending," Reade gulped, "I saw my wife cutting at my car's brake-lines. Got outta that one by the skin o' my teeth. Then I saw her pushing me off my own damn stairs. That was close too."

"Have you ever heard of a song that goes '_I have a funny feeling_,'" Dean said wryly, making Sam's eyes roll, "'_You don't love me_--'"

"Dean, shut up."

"I gave her another chance," Reade said, "But she's in jail now, you know."

"Your... your visions," Bobby said, tossing Dean a warning glare, "When did they start?"

"I've always had them," Reade replied, "As long as I can remember, I guess that's why I never thought of it as useful or weird, or all that much of a big deal. I can't control them, I can't get them at will. I just dream, like once in awhile this time-door opens and I'm allowed inside, you know? This ex-girlfriend of mine in middle-school, she taught me the term '_deja vu_.' I was like, oh! Cool! Sometimes I'd wake up finding the headline on the newspaper familiar, or knowing how many lines my toasted bread would have, or what the kid in front of me in class would be wearing. Little things, I said. Random stuff. I was always like, 'Oh, _deja vu_!' I had a word for it now, and so it stuck. When I got older, I dreamed up the lotto fucking numbers, right? And when I woke up, I was like, 'When I see the numbers on TV tonight, it's gonna be like _deja vu_.' Then I suddenly felt like I got hit by thunder. I was a fricking idiot all this time! So I bet on the numbers, and that was my first forty million. The lotto was the first time I realized I wasn't feeling _deja vu_ after something happens. I _know _them ahead of time!"

"Forty mil, huh?" Dean said, "At least you made up for lost time."

Reade gave him a sour look. "Anyway, after what I saw... I talked to the local shrink, who was trying to convince me I was nuts. I talked to the cops, they didn't bother with me. I went to the Church, and the priest told me some mumbo-jumbo about the changes I was supposed to make in my life. The only one who would listen to me was the fucking bartender."

"You were preaching the end of the world in front of the supermarket too," Bobby added.

"That's probably from spending too much time in the bar," Reade said, smiling sickly, "So the cops picked me up, the only guy I could think of to call and who'd believe me is you and your hunting buddies, Singer, so now here we all are."

"Do you ever get dreams that don't mean anything?" Sam asked.

"Sure, like everybody," Reade replied, "I dreamed about this broad I thought I was gonna get in the sack, once. I was so so sure and I even started getting sweet on her, until she started calling the cops. I don't think that's a premonition. I think I just had that dream because I haven't gotten laid in awhile."

The three hunters blanched, but otherwise kept their mouths shut.

"So what you saw," said Dean, "Probably isn't the end of the world, just the end of this town."

"Probably," Reade shrugged, "I don't know, that's why you people are here. I guess I just said that because it copies better. You know, if you're standing outside the supermarket you can't get very specific. It had to be catchier."

Sam's brows rose, "Right," he agreed, only to indulge the older man.

"Listen, I got an idea," Reade said, "I got a really good dream on some sporting numbers from last night. What's say we use that as a test, huh? I'll give you the winning numbers now, and let's see if I'm the real deal and what I saw is something you wanna work on? If not, then you can just pony on out of here, pretty as you please, and at least someone took me seriously for a couple of hours."

"Sounds _great_ to me!" Dean said, eyes lighting up, and Sam could have heard the actual _ka-ching_! on that green gaze.

"Okay," Reade grinned, "In the meantime, you can bunk here at my house. God knows I have a lot of rooms. No furniture, but I turn on the electricity at night, I got working bathrooms and running water. At least it's free."

"We've stayed at much worse places, I can guarantee that," Dean said, "And we got a couple of sleeping bags and camping gear in the car, so we can just grab them and settle. Thanks, man."

"You got sleeping bags?" Reade asked.

"Standard hunter's supply fare," Bobby affirmed, "Why?"

"Got one for me?"

" " "

"So how much did you bet?" Sam asked, as the brothers listened on the Impala's stereo to find out if they've won anything, later that evening. Paul Reade's house had the basics, but no TV or radio.

"Almost everything we saved up the last couple of weeks," Dean grinned, "Oh, we are gonna make a bundle, Sammy. Bobby says this guy's the real deal, and I can live with that."

"It's a test," Sam told him, warily, "You know that, right? What if he's wrong, Dean? He said so himself, he gets meaningless dreams too."

"This'll work," Dean said, determinedly, shushing his brother as the results of the track was being announced, "Here we go..."

" " "

The frustrated, primal scream echoed across the property.

"I think you'd better hide," Bobby told Reade warily, who was cooking them dinner from canned food in the kitchen.

The double doors slammed open, a few rooms away. Reade's eyes were wide as saucers. He looked around the glaringly empty kitchen. When he decided to do without the furniture, he never imagined he would be needing them just to have something to hide behind.

"Reade!" Dean hollered.

"Dean," his kid brother said, trailing after the huffing elder Winchester, "He never said it was the real thing, he said it was a test--"

"Reade!" Dean bellowed.

"Help me," Reade said to Bobby in a small voice.

"Oh for god's sakes," Bobby muttered, looking around the room, just somewhere he could stuff the little man into until he could calm Dean down.

"I smell food," they heard Dean exclaim, "I smell food!"

His pounding footsteps sounded nearer and nearer as he followed the smell of canned chili toward the kitchen.

"Oh god," Reade yelped, just as Dean burst into the room with fury in his eyes and Sam trailing after him. Reade jumped, let out a squeal, and then ran for the back door.

Dean, spotting his prey, followed like a beast.

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed, grabbing for his jacket. He shook it free and ran into Bobby who blocked his way.

"Get your wits together, boy!" Bobby managed to say, as Dean struggled against him.

"I'm gonna wring his neck!"

"He said it was a test," Sam reasoned from behind him. He pressed a hand to Dean's shoulder, "Dean. Man, come on."

"Lemme go," Dean told his two companions through grit teeth and flaring nose, "I'm not gonna hurt him, I'm just gonna tell him it's not _nice_ to mislead people."

Sam bit back a laugh, but his shoulders were quaking, and Dean could sense changes in Sam's mood any day. He threw his younger brother a glare.

"We lost a thousand dollars, Sammy," Dean said darkly, "Of our hard-earned, too little money."

"We'll get it back, man," Sam assured him, "You've got two hustlers in this family now. It shouldn't take the two of us too long to get it back."

Dean's eyes narrowed in irritation, but he had calmed, and he really did mean what he say about not hurting the man. He rolled back his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

"Good," Bobby said, releasing his hold on Dean with a pat, "Come on, you boys get started on the food. I'm gonna pick up the quivering mess of our host before he pees himself. You boys talk it over and figure out if you wanna stick around for this case or not."

" " "

Bobby found Paul Reade cowering in the backseat of the Impala, parked on the rotunda of the house.

"Last place he'd look," Reade said with a shrug, but he was still wide-eyed, staring at Bobby, "Am I safe?"

"From him?" Bobby said, as he opened the door as he pulled Reade out, "Yeah. From me, though... not so much."

"But you didn't bet nothin'!" Reade exclaimed, "You were with me all this time!"

Bobby grabbed Reade by the collar and pressed him against the car. "You have been acting funny around those boys since they got here, and I got a feeling you gave them bad numbers and I wanna know why."

"It's not my fault they used the damn numbers," Reade spat out, "Whoever told that guy to bet whatever he bet anyway? We said it was a fucking test!"

"You knew by how he looked he was gonna bet whatever he had," Bobby said, "He trusted you because _I_ trusted you. They're here because _I_ needed them, so this is all on me. And _you_ are pissing _me_ off. Now, seeing as I have to both dent my account finding a way to get them back their thousand bucks and dent my brain trying to find a way to make it appear that I'm not giving them any money, I figured the least you can do is give me an answer."

Reade stared at Bobby, "You gotta get them outta here."

"Why?"

"I don't know them," Reade replied, shakily, "But I saw them in my dream too. If they stick around, they're gonna die."

May or may not be continued...

Thanks for reading through my rants, guys, really. C&C's if you can spare 'em, and 'til the next post!


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